Spy Kids, 2001
 

Additional Captures

Director: Robert Rodgriguez

Screenwriter: Ehren Kruger (Arlington Road, Reindeer Games)

Co-Stars: Carla Cuggino (Antonio’s wife), Alan Cumming, Teri Hatcher, Cheech Marin

Distributor: Dimension Films

Release Date: March 30, 2001

Filmed: Austin, Texas

Excerpted from Script Asylum’s Review:

“A pair of super spies [Antonio and Carla] have retired from the espionage game, spending the last nine years building a family, trying to keep their past identities under wraps. The backstory, where Mom and Dad meet as opposing spies, is recounted in a clever open-sequence bedtime story. This flashback sets a playful tone and opens up the possibilities for a different slant on the spy flick structure. Unfortunately, the story borrows from the same blueprint as Bond and Austin Powers: a one-dimensional, loosely-motivated madman hatches his plans for world domination and financial gain only to be held-up by a pesky pair of spies. The script tweaks it a bit by turning the spy couple’s children (who have been trained from birth to be spies without realizing that their parents were spies) into the heroes, as Mom and Dad get kidnapped [reportedly because of an invention the father is working on] by the bizarro baddie in the middle of the script. Wonder kids to the rescue!

[The] screenwriter…does a good job with the details, infusing the story with some quirky spy charm and elements ripe with special effects potential. The escape pod sequence should rock, with the kids being shot underground and over water in a bubble-like vehicle while henchmen pursue them. Likewise, a piece of spy gum used as a tracking device when stuck to an assailant feels a lot fresher than the typical homing bugs that Bond uses. And while [the director] could have infused this idea with some of the old ultraviolence, it seems that he’s done (at least for now) with the gratuitously genius bullet-dancing of his heyday. This one will be rated G, unless [Rodriguez] unleashes Teri Hatcher’s naughty sauce on audiences nationwide – but there ain’t anything in the book that suggests Mom is going to be anything more than a, well, Mom. We see where Kruger and Rodriguez were trying to go with the main bad guy, but we ain’t biting. In spy flicks, it’s generally the case that the best ones often have kickass bad guys. In Spy Kids they play off the whole Barney-Furbee-Pokeman-Teletubbies dynamic, situating the flick’s Dr. Evil as a dude who runs a kids’ show by day, an evil empire by night. That’s right, Floop and his Fooglies are not what they seem. The Fooglies are actually spies that have been mutated into demented, multi-colored creatures. Go figure. The Thumb Thumbs (mindless, butterfingered henchmen) are kinda cool. “