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OK, so I got curious about the Spy Kids reviews here, and I saw that nobody reviewed it, which means I haven't reviewed it, and I was passionate about a previous review I wrote on another website. I could've sworn that I did, and I can't find a previous review I wrote anywhere else even though I KNOW that I wrote one. So I'm gonna review it here.
Spy Kids would kickstart a phenomenon that would see many failed emulators like Agent Cody Banks, Cats & Dogs, Catch That Kid, The Spy Next Door and G-Force. I didn't even check out half of these because most of them were supposed to be terrible. Thankfully, this phenom wasn't subject to the plague of over-grittiness that was kickstarted by the success of the Batman cartoon and the attempts at replicating it. It was bad enough that they did it to Sonic, and they didn't even bother to make Loonatics Unleashed a parody of grittiness as opposed to a dark action cartoon, but we almost had this.
Dudes... You literally spend your whole game developing budget on Elijah Wood and Gary Oldman three times in a row, and think this is a good idea. And isn't the Blaze of Fury a Will Ferrell movie?
OK, so Spy Kids... **** YEAH. This is literally the definition of millennial childhood for a plethora of reasons. It ain't just the nostalgia talking. I don't rate based on nostalgia. Spy Kids is a unique concept which is built to recreate a child's desires. Don't believe me? I checked before writing this specific review: Robert Rodriguez wanted to make a movie that felt like it was actually written and directed by kids. Because of this, we need to assume that it's a much more thematic movie than all of its knockoffs. I mean, look at the plot here.
Carmen and Juni are two troubled kids who don't know that their parents are ex-spies. When other spies go mussing, their parents are called in on the case, unaware that the kidnapper is none other than children's TV superstar Fegan Floop, who's really having his strings pulled by his own second-in-command. And of course, he has his own castle where all the weird robots and creatures on the show are REAL. So unable to face Floop properly, the parents are kidnapped as well, and Carmen and Juni end up on an adventure to find out why they're being held captive and hopefully save their parents and the world.
Think about what a spy movie is for a moment: political intrigue, travelling to foreign countries, fast cars, gadgets. Those first two are NOT gonna appeal to kids in the same way. They don't care for politics and they'll likely know very little about other worlds. So if we think about this from a kiddy mentality, writing about travelling to another country from the kiddy mindset would mean rewriting a country to be more outlandish, and maybe accidentally racist.
So what's left? Travel to a world a child can understand: a children's TV show. It's perfect. The parent's can't comprehend this kind of world as well as a child! They've grown past that! The kids have to be the ones to traverse those landscapes and save the day! It's a perfect concept. Any little kid who plays pretend spy would think of this kinda stuff, and they made a literal movie out of it. That's some pretty cool meta-thinking there, even going as far as to remind me of when Tarkovsky made a movie entirely out of a fictional character's memories. Genius thematic touches, Rodriguez. And they said you were all style.
Now for the really kiddy stuff. As a guy who wants to write children's stories, I took a lot out of this movie. I mean, let's be honest. You want a microwave that turns popcorn packets into free McDonald's. Do not deny it. You WANT one. I don't even like McDonald's that much anymore, and I want one. And gum and bubbles that electrify people? That's pretty damn cool. There are plenty of other creative kid's gadgets that are difficult for people to think of. And of course, we get clever story-based ways to use them. That much is demanded, and if we didn't get that I might even be upset. In fact, the story is surprisingly packed and fast-paced for the type of movie it is. There's always something going on every two minutes if not multiple things going on.
Let's not even forget that this heavy SFX of this movie can be described in one word.
This is a movie that turns the freakin' Wonka factory into a mad-genius's playhouse. If you thought Chairry the Chair was scary, try being punked by a fake falling floor of puzzle pieces. And take a look at these disgusting Flooglies that are apparently supposed to appeal to kids with their colorful and outlandish, even Seussian appearances. These are ugly to us but apparently appealing to kids, which is basically the heart of the dark secret of this movie. Maybe the thumb thumbs weren't the brightest concept, but we got a weird, wild and even wicked wonderful world of Willy Wonka.
But now for the best part: the casting. We have two incredible young actors with realistic sibling charisma butting heads with a star-studded cast. Antonio Banderas and Carla Gugino make for a convincing couple who don't even have to try with their acting skills here. And we get some perfect casting from many of the minor characters as well. Getting Danny Trejo to play Uncle Machete was perfect. he brought so much resentment and semi-parental concern to the screen for the little amount of time he had. Absolutely dynamic. I'd ask for more of him, but his role was too vital in that little amount of time to warrant unnecessary screen time. Alan Cumming was disturbingly convincing as Floop, like he was born to play him. I saw this guy on Son of the Mask, and he struggled with Loki. I'm surprised he pulled this off earlier in his life. And of course, you can always expect Tony Shalhoub to play a good role, even if he's switching between nerdy side-villain to menacing main villain. And finally, we get Robert freakin' Patrick to play the overarching businessman who initially makes the deals with Floop. he deserves bigger roles, but he was also very dynamic in his own "businessman" way, a role he pulled off as effortlessly as the T2. Though I wasn't very impressed with Cheech Marin as the fake uncle or Teri Hatcher who felt out of place.
Other cameos we get are George Clooney as the big boss Devlin, Mike Judge as Donnagon Giggles, the spy who gets captured, and (I have NO IDEA how Rodriguez pulled this off), but one of the spies is played by Richard Linklater.
So whatever childlike mentality wiggles its wormy fingers into such a creative movie ends up being rocked like a new suit. This is guilty of kiddy storytelling that we'll be able to predict, but as a thematic kids movie, it succeeds, and it's extremely exciting and kinetic. This is an all-ages movie that is severely underrated by Imdb and Letterboxd. For once, RT got it right. Spy Kids deserves to be a classic, and even warrants having four sequels. Even if the spy phenom is over fore us millennials, Spy Kids may never die.
= 85
Spy Kids
(2001) - Directed by Robert Rodriguez
--------------------------------------------
Spy / Action-Adventure / Sci-Fi / Comedy / Family
-------------------------------------------------
(2001) - Directed by Robert Rodriguez
--------------------------------------------
Spy / Action-Adventure / Sci-Fi / Comedy / Family
-------------------------------------------------
"My parents can't be spies! They're not cool enough!"
OK, so I got curious about the Spy Kids reviews here, and I saw that nobody reviewed it, which means I haven't reviewed it, and I was passionate about a previous review I wrote on another website. I could've sworn that I did, and I can't find a previous review I wrote anywhere else even though I KNOW that I wrote one. So I'm gonna review it here.
Spy Kids would kickstart a phenomenon that would see many failed emulators like Agent Cody Banks, Cats & Dogs, Catch That Kid, The Spy Next Door and G-Force. I didn't even check out half of these because most of them were supposed to be terrible. Thankfully, this phenom wasn't subject to the plague of over-grittiness that was kickstarted by the success of the Batman cartoon and the attempts at replicating it. It was bad enough that they did it to Sonic, and they didn't even bother to make Loonatics Unleashed a parody of grittiness as opposed to a dark action cartoon, but we almost had this.
Dudes... You literally spend your whole game developing budget on Elijah Wood and Gary Oldman three times in a row, and think this is a good idea. And isn't the Blaze of Fury a Will Ferrell movie?
OK, so Spy Kids... **** YEAH. This is literally the definition of millennial childhood for a plethora of reasons. It ain't just the nostalgia talking. I don't rate based on nostalgia. Spy Kids is a unique concept which is built to recreate a child's desires. Don't believe me? I checked before writing this specific review: Robert Rodriguez wanted to make a movie that felt like it was actually written and directed by kids. Because of this, we need to assume that it's a much more thematic movie than all of its knockoffs. I mean, look at the plot here.
Carmen and Juni are two troubled kids who don't know that their parents are ex-spies. When other spies go mussing, their parents are called in on the case, unaware that the kidnapper is none other than children's TV superstar Fegan Floop, who's really having his strings pulled by his own second-in-command. And of course, he has his own castle where all the weird robots and creatures on the show are REAL. So unable to face Floop properly, the parents are kidnapped as well, and Carmen and Juni end up on an adventure to find out why they're being held captive and hopefully save their parents and the world.
Think about what a spy movie is for a moment: political intrigue, travelling to foreign countries, fast cars, gadgets. Those first two are NOT gonna appeal to kids in the same way. They don't care for politics and they'll likely know very little about other worlds. So if we think about this from a kiddy mentality, writing about travelling to another country from the kiddy mindset would mean rewriting a country to be more outlandish, and maybe accidentally racist.
So what's left? Travel to a world a child can understand: a children's TV show. It's perfect. The parent's can't comprehend this kind of world as well as a child! They've grown past that! The kids have to be the ones to traverse those landscapes and save the day! It's a perfect concept. Any little kid who plays pretend spy would think of this kinda stuff, and they made a literal movie out of it. That's some pretty cool meta-thinking there, even going as far as to remind me of when Tarkovsky made a movie entirely out of a fictional character's memories. Genius thematic touches, Rodriguez. And they said you were all style.
Now for the really kiddy stuff. As a guy who wants to write children's stories, I took a lot out of this movie. I mean, let's be honest. You want a microwave that turns popcorn packets into free McDonald's. Do not deny it. You WANT one. I don't even like McDonald's that much anymore, and I want one. And gum and bubbles that electrify people? That's pretty damn cool. There are plenty of other creative kid's gadgets that are difficult for people to think of. And of course, we get clever story-based ways to use them. That much is demanded, and if we didn't get that I might even be upset. In fact, the story is surprisingly packed and fast-paced for the type of movie it is. There's always something going on every two minutes if not multiple things going on.
Let's not even forget that this heavy SFX of this movie can be described in one word.
This is a movie that turns the freakin' Wonka factory into a mad-genius's playhouse. If you thought Chairry the Chair was scary, try being punked by a fake falling floor of puzzle pieces. And take a look at these disgusting Flooglies that are apparently supposed to appeal to kids with their colorful and outlandish, even Seussian appearances. These are ugly to us but apparently appealing to kids, which is basically the heart of the dark secret of this movie. Maybe the thumb thumbs weren't the brightest concept, but we got a weird, wild and even wicked wonderful world of Willy Wonka.
But now for the best part: the casting. We have two incredible young actors with realistic sibling charisma butting heads with a star-studded cast. Antonio Banderas and Carla Gugino make for a convincing couple who don't even have to try with their acting skills here. And we get some perfect casting from many of the minor characters as well. Getting Danny Trejo to play Uncle Machete was perfect. he brought so much resentment and semi-parental concern to the screen for the little amount of time he had. Absolutely dynamic. I'd ask for more of him, but his role was too vital in that little amount of time to warrant unnecessary screen time. Alan Cumming was disturbingly convincing as Floop, like he was born to play him. I saw this guy on Son of the Mask, and he struggled with Loki. I'm surprised he pulled this off earlier in his life. And of course, you can always expect Tony Shalhoub to play a good role, even if he's switching between nerdy side-villain to menacing main villain. And finally, we get Robert freakin' Patrick to play the overarching businessman who initially makes the deals with Floop. he deserves bigger roles, but he was also very dynamic in his own "businessman" way, a role he pulled off as effortlessly as the T2. Though I wasn't very impressed with Cheech Marin as the fake uncle or Teri Hatcher who felt out of place.
Other cameos we get are George Clooney as the big boss Devlin, Mike Judge as Donnagon Giggles, the spy who gets captured, and (I have NO IDEA how Rodriguez pulled this off), but one of the spies is played by Richard Linklater.
So whatever childlike mentality wiggles its wormy fingers into such a creative movie ends up being rocked like a new suit. This is guilty of kiddy storytelling that we'll be able to predict, but as a thematic kids movie, it succeeds, and it's extremely exciting and kinetic. This is an all-ages movie that is severely underrated by Imdb and Letterboxd. For once, RT got it right. Spy Kids deserves to be a classic, and even warrants having four sequels. Even if the spy phenom is over fore us millennials, Spy Kids may never die.
= 85