Movie Review: Spy Kids: All The Time In The World (2011, Blu-ray)

Reviewed By James DePaolo

In 2001, Robert Rodriguez set out to make a junior league James Bond film intended for kids. It followed the Cortez family, who were a family of spies. Using gadgets that were more Inspector Gadget inspired, than James Bond. I admit I had a good time with the first film. By the time, it got to the third. You can tell the ideas were just getting tired and inspiration was more like a lazy retread of the other two films. The title fit it right. Game Over.

Buy Spy Kids: All the Time in the World on Blu-ray or DVD

Now, fast forward 8 years later, and we are graced with a new Spy Kids films. Robert Rodriguez is back directing, and this time the Cortez family is gone (well sort of), and now we have the Wilson family. Jessica Alba plays retired agent Marissa Wilson. The film starts off with her last assignment, stopping Tick Tock. Jessica Alba is pregnant, and she uses all those gadgets that you have seen in other Spy Kids, and Inspector Gadget films. The gag is she is 9 months pregnant and able to drive a car at top speed, and fight off 10 guys at once and then go down a wire from a building to the ground. Joel McHale (yes the one from The Soup) plays her husband that has a TV show called Spy Hunter. Of course, he is clueless as to what is going on around him and oblivious to common sense. See the plot of this film, is that there is this Armageddon device, which makes time speed up. Yes, the bad guy wants to speed up time, so days turn to minutes and etc. We find out there is something that can stop this machine. The Chrono Sapphire is in the shape of a necklace that Jessica Alba gives to her stepdaughter to try and be her friend. You had to know this film would delve into those kinds of subject matter. It is always good for a film geared at kids, to deal with death of a parent and how you should treat your step mom like crap because she is not her. Oh do not worry, you know before the film is over, they will be all happy. They have to.

Robert Rodriguez makes those sappy kid films, and they have to have the peanut butter, jelly and sunsets ending. Ricky Gervais plays the family's talking dog. Is it just me, or is a watered down Gervais just boring. Of course, Tick Tock has someone he answers to, and this person’s name is The Timekeeper. And, lord all the puns on time. Every scene either had some cheesy saying or tries to be a funny joke that involved either time or a clock. “Watch out, I am going to clean your clock". " Your time is up" We find out that the Spy Kids program shut down once the Cortez kids grew up, but lo and behold if both of them do not appear in this film. Talk about a wasted opportunity. Alexa Vega and Daryl Sabara were such a waste of time. I guess Robert thought when they appear the people in the crowd will go crazy. And, why did Jessica Alba have to carry that kid to all the fights. She is fighting a gang of bad guys with her one year kid in a fanny pack on her chest.

This is the franchise that should never have gone past the original. I see the appeal for films like this, and there were a couple of ok scenes that involved the same flying plane the first film had. But, this time the jokes were either about farting, or barfing. This film boasts proudly about 30 scenes that involve someone farting. Even the dog farts. Joel McHale was in probably about 20 minutes of this film and you can really tell his heart was not into. He even looked bored kissing on Jessica Alba. And, the ending was so embarrassingly bad that I wanted to shut it off and pretend I watched it. This film just felt lazy, one dimensional and in the era of Pixar and the resurrection of cartoons and puppets I grew up on and loved, this film just feels like a cheap shot at getting parents to spend money on this. Maybe rent it for the kids and please by all means, do not waste your time, Banderas did not...

Though, Jessica Alba and Alexa were in tight leather, quite a lot. This film was as fun as driving down the road with a flat tire.