Spy Kids 2:
The Island of Lost Dreams

Spy kids vs. spy kids vs. creatures vs. the most
nerve-wracking nemeses of them all—the grandparents

	Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams
	Starring Alexa Vega, Daryl Sabara, Antonio Banderas, Carla Gugino
	Written, edited and directed by Robert Rodriguez
	Dimension Films
	Rated PG
	Opens Aug. 7

By Patrick Lee

hen the president's daughter, Alexandra, visits the Troublemaker theme park, she persuades her Secret Service handlers to let her ride the towering Juggler. What she doesn't tell them is that she's secretly stolen the key that would stop the machine in an emergency—and she plans to create such an emergency by climbing out on top to get her distracted father's attention.

So who you gonna call? The SK units—that's Spy Kids, a pint-sized branch of the super-secret OSS. Top SKs Juni Cortez (Sabara) and his sister, Carmen (Vega), arrive on the scene, strap on their high-tech spider-climbers, and race to the top of the tower.

But they're not alone. Rival SKs Gerti Giggles (Emily Osment) and her older brother, Gary (Matt O'Leary), also show up. In a flashy rescue, the Giggleses upstage the Cortez siblings and rescue the president's daughter—not to mention the mysterious transmooker device, which she filched from her dad's office.

Later, the Cortez family gathers at a gala OSS dinner, where dad Gregorio (Banderas) and mom Ingrid (Gugino) anticipate Gregorio's ascension to top spy. But at the last minute, Gerti and Gary's dad, Donnagan (Mike Judge), wins the top job. That's not all: As the gathered spies toast, they are overcome by Magna Men, who steal the transmooker device and escape via a giant flying magnet.

June gets the blame for the fiasco and is cashiered from the OSS. Gerti and Gary win the coveted Ukata mission to recover the device. But Carmen hacks into the OSS mainframe, gets Juni reinstated and switches the Ukata assignment to the Cortez kids. In their miniature Dragon Spy sub, the Cortez kids head off to an uncharted island in the Bermuda Triangle, the last vector of the Magna Men.

The Giggleses, meanwhile, are shipped off to somewhere with camels. Back home, Gregorio and Ingrid get a call from Donnagan. Their kids have gone missing. Oh, and Ingrid's parents (Ricardo Montalban and Holland Taylor) are in the lobby.

More gadgetry, but less heart

Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams tries to recapture the magic of last year's surprising hit Spy Kids. And while it reminds the viewer of many of that film's charms, it suffers by comparison. Like Men in Black II, Spy Kids 2 seems to think that if something worked in the first movie, more of it will work even better in the second. Sadly—and like the kids' trademark gadgets—Spy Kids 2 winds up being way too complicated.

Which is not to say that Spy Kids 2 is a bad movie. The indefatigable Rodriguez—who practically made the movie single-handedly, acting as his own cinematographer, production designer, editor and even co-music supervisor—is abundantly imaginative. The film's amusement park opening is spunky, Juni and Alexandra share a cute ballet pas-de-deux, and Rodriguez incorporates a cunning homage to Ray Harryhausen in the design of the island's creatures and visual effects. Rodriguez also shows great wit in the look and feel of the film, which was shot in high-definition video in Costa Rica and Texas. Like the first film, Spy Kids 2 looks like it cost twice as much as it actually did.

The problem is the story, and the movie quickly loses focus. Though ostensibly centered on the Cortez kids' rivalry with the Giggleses, the film weaves together plots involving Donnagan (an underused Judge), Alexandra and the president, Ingrid's parents and the neuroses of an island-dwelling mad scientist (Steve Buscemi), as well as return cameos by Fegan Floop (Alan Cumming), the Thumb-Thumbs, Alexander Minion (Tony Shalhoub) and Uncle Machete (Danny Trejo). It's too much to keep track of, especially in a film that runs less than 90 minutes. And though the bombardment of wonders will doubtless enchant the tykes, it begins to wear on adult viewers pretty quickly.

What's missing is the poetry of the first movie—the warm Latin home, the Mariachi-style wedding shootout, the mesmerizing Floop reveries. In their place, we have more gadgets, more monsters, more kick-butt action and more characters. And in this case, more is less.

Spy Kids 2 is so jam-packed, it's ironic that I came away wanting something else—more Ingrid and Gregorio, more Ricardo Montalban, more Juni-Carmen moments, more heart. Still, I think real kids will love these new Spy Kids. — Patrick

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Also in this issue: Battle Royale and Pythons 2

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