Robert Rodriguez is just a big kid, and sometimes he makes movies like one. (And judging by his recent promotional appearances for Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World, he’s ageless as well. He looks exactly the same as he did when he was promoting the first Spy Kids movie back in 2001). Think about it: really, the Spy Kids franchise, more than any other than comes to mind, is a movie made for ten-to-twelve years old by a guy who thinks like a ten-to-twelve-year-old kid. Taken a whole, the look, feel, and acting shows that Rodriguez is apparently channeling their entire point of view.
Let’s face it: the plots don’t make a whole heck of a lot of sense. The villains–mostly variations on snooty, loco, and ultimately dangerous white guys (Jeremy Piven, Alan Cumming, Sylvester Stallone)–are the kinds of villains kids would build from scratch. And even the tech–the weapons that are allblinking lights and massive gun barrels, pulled from purses or jackets that are ten times too small–look like the doodles you’d find on the back of a middle school binder…made real.
Which is why it works. All that illogic and exuberance is exactly what the kids that age want, and it calls out to the kid in all of us.
Maybe it’s all that innocent, noisy good fund that’s attracted such an impressive international cast–hey, kids don’t care what color or culture Mom or Dad or their best friends are, as long as they have your back! Some great Latino actors have been convinced to play parts in the franchise, from Ricardo Montalban and Antonio Banderas to Salma Hayek and most recently Jessica Alba. Even Danny Trejo stops by as–get this–“Uncle Machete.” Maybe it’s the extended family that Rodriguez involved and employs over and over again (Alexa Vega thinks of him as a father; he actually walked her down the aisle at her wedding.) And though the original Spy Kids (Vega, Daryl Sabara) may be ancient now—already in their late teens and twenties! It’s icky!–there are new kid-sized recruits ready to take their place.
Come on, give in: it’s perfect for the kids, and you’ll enjoy it too. You’ve got 12-year-olds overcoming an international conspiracy. You’ve got more gadgets that you can shake a wii-mote at. You’ve got a damn robot dog, for God’s sake, that pees a treacherous oil slick and poops exploding chrome ball-bearing. As the new male Spy Kid says–quite rightly–“That is so cool!”
It sure is–to the twelve-year-old in all of us.
