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Why did I, a fully grown man with no preteen children, watch Spy Kids 5?

I think it is because I had a lot of affection for the first two Spy Kids films when they came out back in 2001 and 2002. First off I have always enjoyed a good children’s movie, even well after my own childhood had passed. You can read what you will into that and maybe you’ll have a fair measure of the kind of guy I am. Who knows, I’m no psychologist. At that point though I was also just becoming a father for the first time and was a primary school teacher so I had a particular interest in what contemporary cinema young people might enjoy. I actually used the original Spy Kids as an academic prompt in the classroom and got some really good writing and creative art work from the students out of it, so that adds to my fond memories. Even aside of all of this though they were both fun movies that had an endearing childish sensibility and nice focus on the empowerment of early adolescents in an adult world. When my own girls got a bit older they really enjoyed them too.

Sadly Spy Kids 3 was a disappointment and number 4 passed me by completely but I guess on seeing this come up on Netflix a sense of nostalgia got me.

It’s twelve years since the last of these films and they changed the main cast with that one, this though is a complete reboot. There is still much here that is familiar from the previous Spy Kids movies; the music and iconography for example, but there’s no escaping that this is not as good.

At first I wasn’t sure while watching it if it was the film that was different or me (I’m not teaching youngsters any more and my three daughters are mostly adults now) but it’s pretty clear that the quality of this series is not what it was. Zachary Levi and Gina Rodriguez are fine as the new set of parents but they lack the committed earnestness of Antonio Banderas and Carla Gugino who were clearly in on the joke but took it very seriously. Levi in particular never seems far from a wink to camera. The kids are not as charismatic here either. Also, while once again they come from parents of different heritage, they don’t look like they do. Rather she is an exact copy of her mum and he of his dad like the puppies in Lady & the Tramp. They don’t have the believable sibling chemistry of the young Alexa PenaVega and Daryl Sabara either.

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The film revisits the beats of the first Spy Kids with some success but it also heavily replays the computer game setting that derailed Spy Kids 3. The cheap CGI Mario Kart hellscape we get here is bad enough but the level they are playing is nowhere near as hard as they make out. It’s like watching Dora the Explorer play Lara Croft.

Ultimately though it is as if returning director Robert Rodriquez has totally lost his mojo. The early millennium Spy Kids flicks had a great mix of his adult film style and a family friendly approach but now it seems that these two sides of his cinematic character have diverged completely and mores the pity. These films were always a little sentimental but now they are just corny and probably have little to no appeal to anyone older than six. There is just no innovation or panache here anymore. When I heard that Rodriquez’s son Racer was one of the writers I thought that explained it but he’s not actually eight, he’s in his mid twenties.

Oh well. I’ve always said that I’ll watch any kind of film without any driving preference or close mindedness but perhaps on this occasion I could have been a little more discerning.

Ooh, I see Clifford the Big Red Dog is on Netflix too.

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The Ripley Factor:

Okay, so if you accept that this film is only suited to very young children and don’t demand any level of sophistication then the area in which it excels is in the gender politics. The females in the movie are generally wiser than the males and ultimately it is the daughter Patty that saves the day. If you were a young girl watching this then she is an excellent role model.