Cheap Spy Kids (DVD) (Antonio Banderas, Carla Gugino, Alexa Vega, Daryl Sabara) (Robert Rodriguez) Price

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Customer Reviews of Spy Kids

Suddenly Gregorio and Ingrid are captured by a
supervillain named Floop (Alan Cummings), who is torn between
his desire to get his children's TV show from the Number
Two popularity slot to the top, and his plans for world
domination. Carmen and Juni then find out that their
parents weren't as dull as they thought, and embark on
a mission, aided by gadgets built by the mercenary
inventor Machete (Danny Trejo), to rescue their parents
and save the world.

Now SPY KIDS might sound from this description like
an utterly dumb and silly kid's movie that would make
little ones laugh and adults groan in pain, but
Rodriguez is such a clever fellow that he has managed
to make a movie that is a riot for both kids and
adults. SPY KIDS throws endless, sharply produced
gimmickry at the viewer, from rocket belts to fish-shaped
minisubs to magic refrigerators to holographic video
chambers, with the two kids sometimes hard-pressed to
get things to work right -- the rocket belts are a
particular trial.

Add to this roller-coaster action and a lot of snappy
and funny scriptwriting, and you have a fun and
impressive virtual theme-park thrill ride, nicely
balanced in its ability to toss out jokes just for the
kids and humor for the older folks, too, and still
tell an engaging story that never takes itself
seriously for an instant. Even the enlightening messages
of family and personal values, obligatory for a kid's
movie, are served out with a bit of a wink that make
them much less heavy-handed.

I howled all the way through SPY KIDS. I'll have to
watch the sequel now.

Fantasy romp is a real pleasrure
I recently said that Hollywood may have forgotten how to make family movies. It seemed like an art lost in a sea of social changes. It is often said that children aren't as innocence as they used to be. If so, this is equally true of adults. Stories that entertained our grandparents are ones that many of us today find tame, trite and tedious. So, Spy Kids is a welcome surprise. It's fast, funny and innovative. By design, it's greatest appeal is to children, but most parents should enjoy it, too. It is like a Tim Burton movie [The Nightmare Before Christmas, Batman, Sleepy Hollow] with all the dark overtones happily banished. It doesn't make any sense, but, like all great tall tales, it exists in its own space and time.

It took an odd pairing to create this movie. Its star, Antonio Banderas, gained fame as a very hot lover in movies in his native Spain. Director Robert Rodriguez started out in Mexico making movies that were stylish and creative but extremely violent. Until Spy Kids, his American movies were the same. I don't know what drew them to this project, but I'm glad they chose to do it.

Carmen and Juni [Alexa Varga and Daryl Sabara] are kids who live in a cool house overlooking the ocean. Their parents, Gregorio and Ingrid [Banderas and Carla Gugino] are loving but decidedly uncool as far as Carmen and Juni are concerned. Mom is overly protective, and Dad seems to be a wimp. They run a consulting business out of the house. What the kids don't know is that Mom and Dad used to be international spies. Currently, Gregorio and Ingrid are looking into the disappearance of some former coworkers. Juni is obsessed with a wacky children's show starring the bizarre Fegan Floop [Alan Cummin]. The boy, as well as the rest of the family, is about to learn that Floop and the disappearing spies are very much connected. When Gregorio and Ingrid also vanish, the kids set out to find them. It will prove to be the adventure of a lifetime.

The sets are colorful and imaginative. There are lots of cool gadgets - crayons that are actually lasers, neat cars that are also boats and submarines and so forth. Floop has a treasure trove of creatures he has created, including the robot children he plans to use to take over the world. My favorite characters are his bodyguards - pudgy, waddling things that are literally all thumbs.

Banderas is fun as Gregorio, playing a kind of a parody of himself. Varga and Sabara make the children likable. These aren't the cloyingly cute kids you see in most family films. They have personalities with flair and great senses of humor. Cummin plays Floop as a Pee Wee Herman gone completely mad. He's a great villain.

Spy Kids may be about kidnapping and espionage on one level, but it's also about the importance of family, not in the sense of so-called family values, but in the sense of love and loyalty. There will be a sequel in 2002, and, for once, I'm glad to hear it.

a great first!
this movie was real good!when i first saw the trailer i didint think it would be that good!but we were going to see a movie but the tickets were sold out,so we just decided to go see this!i was surprised of how good it was!this movie is awsome!