'Spy Kids' brings creative genius to family flick
GUNDER KEHOE
Scene Movie Critic
It's hard these days to balance a life of love and espionage but it's even harder to make a decent kids movie that doesn't lose the older half of its audience. Most movies aimed at the younger generation must give the parents shivers as was painfully evident when the "Pokemon" trailer graced the screen. After all, parents pay for the tickets and buy the Goobers, so God forbid they should actually enjoy the show.
"Spy Kids" has set out to change the norm. A family movie is a movie the whole family can enjoy. Director Robert Rodriguez has embarked with heedless abandon upon the concept of family spies and made a film with as much directorial energy as anything in recent memory.
Antonio Banderas and Carla Gugino are two professional spies. When this married couple is kidnapped, their kids resume the spy-work to save their parents. As one might expect from a PG spy movie, the story is no harder to follow than tying one's shoe, but the director's inventive execution will capture every viewer.
Sorry to those who are looking for a plot analysis and a critique of the actor's performances, but "Spy Kids" will not be done justice if story and characters are this review's focus. "Spy Kids" is a tribute to creative genius and how a single vision can overcome the bloated budgets of contemporary movies that are overworked with digital effects.
Rodriguez is the Hispanic filmmaker famous for making films on a shoestring budget, and while he's graduated to studio filmmaking, he hasn't lost his sense of untamed creativity. In "El Mariachi," Rodriguez was the lone gunman, simultaneously directing the film while also working on the sound recorders and detonating small squibs for bullet wounds. "Spy Kids" is a chance for Rodriguez to once again tackle every technical skill. Yet he's gone a step further and mastered the art of visual effects.
After becoming comfortable with cinematic trickery, Rodriguez used only the post-production help of a small team in Canada. When he had problems, he just got on the video conferencing screen and consulted a group of Canadians a few thousand miles away.
"Spy Kids" has over 500 effects shots and it's incredible to think that nearly a single man was concocting the entire charade in his own carport. For those naysayers who role their eyes and ask what this action maestro (Rodriguez also directed "Desperado" and "From Dusk 'Til Dawn") is doing helming a kids flick, just imagine a single artist in the confines of his own garage, piecing together special effects. This image alone should prove the filmmaker's artistic integrity and how a single, enthusiastic vision can outweigh even the most juvenile of premises.
"Spy Kids" is laden with effects, perhaps even more so than many of the movies that cost three times as much. While the effects are anything but cutting-edge, what "Spy Kids" lacks in production value it makes up for with style and charm. Rodriguez uses the trickery of yesteryear by employing everything from greenscreens to plastic models.
The end result is a campy effects display that shines in the same vein as "Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory." When Charlie and his uncle burst through the sky in a great glass elevator, the two characters admire London from their wondrous bird's-eye view. The effects are so dated it's frightening, but there's more pleasure in watching that sequence than anything in "Hollow Man," which was hailed for its CGI breakthroughs.
At first, "Spy Kids" might appear chintzy, but Rodriguez's hand is felt on each of the 500 effects. It is precisely this directorial energy that makes the inexpensive effects feel more valuable than anything triple its price.
Many Hollywood films have limitless budgets, so when there's a problem the studios can pile on more money, hoping to gloss over the story flaws with expensive visuals. A few years ago, director Barry Sonnenfeld thought he could save "Wild Wild West's" non-existent screenplay with a myriad of computer graphics. Instead, he took millions of dollars and did the equivalent of flushing legal tender down the toilet.
Rodriguez not only proves himself a magician with the camera, he displays astounding financial savvy by finding cheap but creative ways to convey his point. At $36 million, "Spy Kids" is a tribute to how restricted budgets enhance the creative output. When money is at a minimum, filmmakers must find new and different ways to stretch their resources.
The young children of today who see this movie won't know how lucky they are for many years to come. "Spy Kids" is not about a big studio, manufacturing some formulaic premise to swindle money from unsuspecting children and their folks. Instead, there's a maverick filmmaker who's taken all the funky styles of R-rated movies and given them to a younger generation.
Rodriguez was smart: he cut a nice back-end deal for himself and made an inexpensive family flick that's raking in the cash. Now he can laugh all the way to the bank and then go back to his garage, and start production on another work of family art.
--four out of five shamrocks
All Scene Stories for Thursday, April 5, 2001
