More Than A Kiddie Flick

The gap between bloodthirsty vampire strippers and wide-eyed kiddie films isn't as large as might be expected, and Desperado and From Dusk Till Dawn's director Robert Rodriguez bridges it quite nicely with his bright and slick Spy Kids. The regression from hormonal pubescent fantasies of big guns and bigger explosions to this child's treat is really only a jump backward of maybe five teen years. Spy Kids proves that Rodriguez's inner pre-adolescent has just as much fun as that pimply teenaged B-movie auteur.

It's a bit of a surprise, given that the film's premise doesn't sound much better than See Spot Run. A married spy couple are captured and only their genetically espionage-gifted youngsters can save the day. But Spy Kids handles its entertainment deftly; there's only one poop joke-and it's pretty decent as far as poop jokes go. Rather than turn puerile or predicatable, this movie smartly sends up the spy genre with whiz-bang gadgetry and impossibly unruffled heroes.

Indeed, much of this movie's success derives from its characters. Antonio Banderas and Carla Gugino play spy parents who can never find time for sabotage anymore, what with carpool and all. Their kids (the minimally annoying Alexa Vega and Daryl Sabara) are remarkably adept at maneuvering rocket packs and spy planes, bickering with each other the entire way.

Archenemy Fegan Floop (Alan Cumming) is the star of a kiddie TV show and creator of an evil army of child spy robots. Of course, they're the worst type of spy robots, because parents will simply suspect that the little anklebiters' Ritalin is working. Cumming and his diabolical playpen/lair absurdly resemble Peewee's Playhouse on some nasty shrooms-the film suggests that perhaps both of these criminal child entertainers' perversities, whether they be indecent exposure or world domination, are somehow driven by an honest artistic intention.

It's all in good fun for these kids and the audience, and the film generally refrains from letting its moral-that families should be honest with each other, even about issues of international counterintelligence-get in the way of the momentum. It's certainly more entertaining than the last tired Bond entry. College students could do well for themselves if they crossed back over that demographic line once in a while.