Spy Kids (2001)
Directed by Robert Rodriguez
Carmen and Juni think their parents are boring. Little do they know that in their day, Gregorio and Ingrid Cortez were the top secret agents from their respective countries. They gave up that life to raise their children. Now, the disappearances of several of their old colleagues forces the Cortez' return from retirement. What they didn't count on was Carmen and Juni joining the "family business."
28 connections found
View:
28 films that influenced Spy Kids
What critics say influenced Spy Kids
Rodriguez isn’t the first director of tough content to have a successful go at more wholesome fare: A couple of years ago surrealist David Lynch (Blue Velvet) made the gently uplifting The Straight Story (rated G), and cinematic con man David Mamet (House of Games) made the sweet The Winslow Boy (also rated G).
Rodriguez isn’t the first director of tough content to have a successful go at more wholesome fare: A couple of years ago surrealist David Lynch (Blue Velvet) made the gently uplifting The Straight Story (rated G), and cinematic con man David Mamet (House of Games) made the sweet The Winslow Boy (also rated G).
Rodriguez isn’t the first director of tough content to have a successful go at more wholesome fare: A couple of years ago surrealist David Lynch (Blue Velvet) made the gently uplifting The Straight Story (rated G), and cinematic con man David Mamet (House of Games) made the sweet The Winslow Boy (also rated G).
Rodriguez isn’t the first director of tough content to have a successful go at more wholesome fare: A couple of years ago surrealist David Lynch (Blue Velvet) made the gently uplifting The Straight Story (rated G), and cinematic con man David Mamet (House of Games) made the sweet The Winslow Boy (also rated G).
Still, equating "normal" (at least for a Disney family) and "Hispanic" is quite new for mainstream film, and it is an overdue change from the likes of Hayley Mills or the fair, freckled kids from Escape To Witch Mountain (1975), (Ike Eisenmann and Disney regular Kim Richards).
I wanted to make a movie that had the kind of imaginative elements of all those movies I loved growing up such as Willy Wonka and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang --- which was written by Ian Fleming by the way, " explains Rodriguez.
Advertisement
In many ways, this film resembles 1971's Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory, not only because it features a quirky recluse locked in a fantastic palace full of surprises, but because of its wildly colorful visual design which recollects the trippy, psychedelic styles of Peter Max or Yellow Submarine.
In many ways, this film resembles 1971's Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory, not only because it features a quirky recluse locked in a fantastic palace full of surprises, but because of its wildly colorful visual design which recollects the trippy, psychedelic styles of Peter Max or Yellow Submarine.
This movie is really in the same spirit those shorts, including the award-winning Bedhead.
A lot of people were shocked when Robert Rodriguez announced he was doing a film for children, but not I. No, I thought back to my El Mariachi/Desperado DVD and remembered that there was a short film on there called Bedhead.
Rodriguez also directed "The Misbehavers", the best episode in "Four Rooms".
Since then he�s produced the dismal Four Rooms and The Faculty and now this ill-conceived kiddie spy romp.
Antonio Banderas (also in Rodriguez's Desperado and his Four Rooms segment) and Carla Gugino play enemy spies who fall in love, get married and have kids (Alexa Vega and Daryl Sabara).
With Spy Kids, loosely inspired by his raucous segment in the 1995 omnibus Four Rooms , Rodriguez cannily merges these two seemingly conflicting sensibilities, and the result is an all-ages-appropriate action film that parents wonât feel guilty over taking their kids to.
Spy Kids was written and directed by Robert Rodriguez, who burst onto the indie scene with El Mariachi and proceeded to make hard-core action-horror films like From Dusk Till Dawn and The Faculty.
For someone who has directed a blood-drenched $5,000 indie about a mariachi with a gun disguised as a guitar holder (1993's "El Mariachi"), a ghastly, foul-mouthed vampire epic (1996's "From Dusk Till Dawn"), and a high school-set horror movie about alien teachers (1998's "The Faculty"), it would seem like an odd choice for director Robert Rodriguez to next choose a family film, but that is what he has done.
Spy Kids marks a shift in direction for writer-director Robert Rodriguez, the former whiz kid behind the ultra-low-budget El Mariachi and subsequent violent gorefests such as Desperado, From Dusk Till Dawn and The Faculty.
Written and directed by Robert Rodriguez, whose previous work includes the bloody and very-adult "From Dusk Till Dawn" and "The Faculty," "Spy Kids" tells of a successful secret-agent duo who retired from active duty in order to get married and have kids.
In 1998, he decided to jump genres a bit with the less than successful horror film, "The Faculty," and has now taken an even greater leap with his latest effort.
He went to Miramax honcho Harvey Weinstein with it and said that if he got the greenlight, he would direct one of the studio's projects, which is how he came to direct Kevin Williamson's umpteenth teen horror script "The Faculty".
He did it in "Desperado," that goofball remake of his own "El Mariachi" in which Antonio Banderas regularly killed dozens and dozens of Mexican bad guys in bars and you actually swallowed it.
Filmmaker Robert Rodriguez, whose claim to fame lies in creation of such violent movies as Desperado and From Dusk to Dawn, let his inner child run wild in writing and directing this espionage fantasy.
Written and directed -- startlingly enough -- by guns-a-blazin' Tarantino protégé Robert Rodriguez ("El Mariachi," "Desperado," "From Dusk Till Dawn" ), "Spy Kids" is a glossy, MTV-and-CGI modernization of the kind of throw-away adolescent caper matinees Disney used to crank out in the early 1970s (think "Candleshoe," "Escape to Witch Mountain").
That's not an entirely bad thing, but I was so impressed with how well crafted and written "Spy Kids" was, that what director Robert Rodriguez (“Desperado,” “From Dusk Till Dawn“) serves up for seconds feels rushed and not as clearly thought out.
It's a daring departure for the man who killed off hundreds in El Mariachi, Desperado, From Dusk Til Dawn, and The Faculty.
Spy Kids marks a shift in direction for writer-director Robert Rodriguez, the former whiz kid behind the ultra-low-budget El Mariachi and subsequent violent gorefests such as Desperado, From Dusk Till Dawn and The Faculty.
Both El Mariachi and Desperado arrive on DVD in separate Special Edition reissues, their joint release sandwiched between the theatrical debuts of Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over and the third chapter in the El Mariachi saga, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, whose title finally puts Rodriguez's Sergio Leone fetish centre stage.
So, now imagine a James Bond movie made for a 5-year-old, and that's how you get "Spy Kids," written and directed by Robert Rodriguez ("El Mariachi"), which takes the Bond gestalt and infantilizes it even further.
Spy Kids was written and directed by Robert Rodriguez, who burst onto the indie scene with El Mariachi and proceeded to make hard-core action-horror films like From Dusk Till Dawn and The Faculty.
Written and directed -- startlingly enough -- by guns-a-blazin' Tarantino protégé Robert Rodriguez ("El Mariachi," "Desperado," "From Dusk Till Dawn" ), "Spy Kids" is a glossy, MTV-and-CGI modernization of the kind of throw-away adolescent caper matinees Disney used to crank out in the early 1970s (think "Candleshoe," "Escape to Witch Mountain").
For someone who has directed a blood-drenched $5,000 indie about a mariachi with a gun disguised as a guitar holder (1993's "El Mariachi"), a ghastly, foul-mouthed vampire epic (1996's "From Dusk Till Dawn"), and a high school-set horror movie about alien teachers (1998's "The Faculty"), it would seem like an odd choice for director Robert Rodriguez to next choose a family film, but that is what he has done.
Writer-director Rodriguez once made an ingenious low-tech no-budget movie known as "El Mariachi."
When Fegan's evil henchmen, including two played by Teri Hatcher (1996's "2 Days in the Valley") and Robert Patrick ("The Faculty"), come looking for the Cortez offsprings, it is up to Juni and Carmen to go on the run, all the while setting off to rescue their parents.
Advertisement
Sure there's violence in Spy Kids, but it's a comic book variation of True Lies, or what a sequel to that the-family-that-spies-together action comedy would have ended up.
The press kit calls it "James Bond for kids," but this over-the-top fantasy romp might be more accurately described as a family-friendly True Lies: The Next Generation, or even a married-with-children Austin Powers — all with Willy Wonka-style wonkiness and inspired set design straight out of Dr. Seuss.
Here's a sequence from From Russia With Love.