Spy Kids 4 Review: I Spy You Spy, We Shouldn’t Spy This

Jessica Alba’s hotness couldn’t save Spy Kids 4: All The Time In The World and neither could Joel McHale’s eyebrows. Director Robert Rodriguez really stretched the series out too thin and this is one of those movies that just shouldn’t have been made for the sake of the franchise not going completely down the drain.

The latest in the Spy Kids series boasted the concept of smell-o-vision. Audiences were handed a card which was pretty much a scratch and sniff sticker, something that’s been around since I was in elementary school. At various moments throughout the film, a number would appear and then you would rub the corresponding number on the card. The first one that appeared was for bacon and whatever I smelled was not even close to it.

Alba plays Marissa Cortez, younger sister of Gregorio Cortez (Antonio Banderas) and aunt to the original spy kids, Carmen (Alexa Vega) and Juni (Daryl Sabara). She is also a spy working for OSS (Organization of Super Spies). Incidentally, OSS was the original name of the C.I.A. but it stood for the Office of Strategic Services. Marissa retires from the spy game as she is married, pregnant, and her new family knows nothing of her life working for the OSS. Her husband Wilbur Wilson, played by Joel McHale, dreams of having his own reality show called, “Spy Hunter”, you see the irony of course since unbeknownst to him his wife is an actual spy. Rebecca (Rowan Blanchard), Wilbur’s oldest child from his first marriage, is angry with Marissa for entering their lives. Her younger brother Cecil (Mason Cook) though is more open to having Marissa in their family. Alba’s character must deal with life as a stepmom to two children, raising a toddler who can’t stop farting, and a husband who is consumed with work.

When an evil villain called the Time Keeper begins to speed up time, Marissa is called out of retirement back into action. Rebecca and Cecil are attacked by the Time Keeper’s minions and then learn about their stepmom’s previous occupation as a spy. They meet Carmen and Juni, who are now grown up and learn about the defunct spy kids division at the OSS. Rebecca and Cecil use their wits and imagination to stop the bad guys and deal with life in a blended family.

I didn’t like the latest addition to the Spy Kids series mainly because I just couldn’t get over how annoying Rebecca was. Others may not feel this way but I wanted to shake her and say stop complaining, life could be infinitely worse. But she’s a little girl who has to deal with the death of her mother and having a new person in their lives and understandably that is hard to adjust too. In comparison to the original Spy Kids, Carmen and Juni, Rebecca and Cecil just didn’t have the chemistry. With that said, Cook had some notable moments, particularly the puke bag bombs.

Jeremy Piven plays a bad guy and I’m going to refrain from writing anymore on that because it’ll give away the story, but his performance lacked the intensity that I’ve come to expect from him. Piven is most known for his role as Ari Gold on HBO’s Entourage. Admittedly it might just be hard for me to see him as anything other than an angry agent or John Cusack’s best friend in Serendipity.

The best thing about Spy Kids 4 had to be Argonaut, the talking robotic dog, voiced by Ricky Gervais. Gervais had the best lines and who doesn’t love an adorable and scruffy talking dog?

Spy Kids 4 felt flat and all over the place. I know it’s meant for kids and so the time-space continuum really didn’t need to be explained but the science fiction elements of the movie just confused me. The Time Keeper was speeding up time and when a particular place ran out, everything got frozen which is fine, but the result of time traveling just made no sense to me whatsoever. The overall message of the film was that you had to make time to spend with the people you love and that you had to keep moving forward, both good messages to share but I just couldn’t get passed the time travel bit.

Bottom line is that the kids will probably enjoy it with the numerous pranks and sibling bickering but by far it’s not the best one in the franchise.

Photos Courtesy of IMDB