SPY KIDS

US, 2001, 86 minutes, Colour.
Antonio Banderas, Carla Gugino, Alexa Vega, Daryl Benbera, Cheech Marin, Terri Hartcher, Alan Cumming, Tony Shalhoub, George Clooney.
Directed by Robert Rodriguez.

Writer-director Robert Rodriguez rose to fame on his minute-budget actioner, El Mariachi. Moving into the big league he made Desperado, From Dusk till Dawn and The Faculty. Now that he has children, he wanted to combine action with a story that he could take them to see. So, a comic action adventure full of special effects where the very nice suburban parents still yearn for some action. But when they are tricked and abducted, it is their children who have to use their ingenuity and come to their rescue.

This is a film which shows what a director can do when he has motivation for his children and a big budget for effects. Kids should like it - the villain is making an army of replicant children (including our young hero and heroine who get to act both goodies and baddies). Adults should be amused watching Antonio Banderas as a somewhat subdued Dad and Alan Cumming and Tony Shalhoub as a pair of comic-book villains - or, rather, they are villains who work for a living producing and acting in children's television programs!

1. A very popular family film of 2001? The popular ingredients, the children, their action, transformed, helping their parents, the fantasy of being spies?

2. The settings: the American home (with its spy gadgetry), the sea front, the transition to a fantasy and espionage world, the island where Froop lived, the laboratory, the television studio? The realm of gadgets? Machete's house?
The range of special effects and action? Musical score and atmosphere?

3. The title and its focus, the kids, their not knowing their parents were secret agents, their having to rescue them, their being transformed, the final mission from George Clooney and their being available as a family?

4. The opening with the American family, cosy, loving? The kids not wanting to go to school, their attitudes towards their parents? Carmen asking for a story, Ingrid telling the story and the flashbacks of her own work with Gregorio, their being commissioned to destroy each other, the meeting, falling in love, the dinners, the wedding, settling down with a family? Yet each having their consultancy work and their equipment?

5. Wanting some adventure, the special commission, their going together, their clothes, vehicle underwater, pursued? Their being captured? Held to ransom? The background of Gregorio's experiments, the third brain, Mr Mignon?

6. The children, their uncle Felix coming to stay with them, the discovery of the truth? The messages? Uncle Felix sending them through the secret passage as he warded off the attackers?

7. The personalities of Carmen and Juni? Carmen always criticising Juni, at school and his inability to assert himself, his watching his father (and his father's confrontation with the large parent and imagining throwing him through the window)? Carmen and her bossiness? Their having to use their own resources, Juni using his brains? The discovery of the Froop Land (and Juni popularly watching it even in the car)? His ability with imitations? Their going to their uncle's, Machete and the wedding, his being Gregorio's older brother, his inventions, their taking them, going off in the vehicle, landing in the laboratory? Their fighting their way with the robot children, the images of themselves the fight in the park, the fight in the laboratory, the collapsing
floor...? Finding their parents and rescuing them?

8. Froop and his television show, the style of characters, talking to the children, working with Mignon? The rich council and their wanting their own army? Mignon and his assisting Froop, yet the brains behind the plan? The robot children, their strength, inability to speak? The demands of the head of the council, his femme fatale assistant? Their trying to get the information? Her being transformed? The two day limit?

9. Froop, working with Mignon, Mignon taking over, imprisoning Froop in the television? Juni and his ability to rescue Froop? Froop and his change of heart, wanting to help the children, being left with the machines to change right into wrong and wrong into right? His transition at the exact moment? Transforming Mignon?

10. The parade of the children, the attack on the parents, Machete's arriving, the children? Froop changing the mechanism at the right moment? The children and their doing good and the television reports from around the world?

11. A moral fable, fantasy for children, a family story? The role of the media, science, science fantasy, special effects?