...Cody Banks is a little older than the Spy Kids and, consequently, more into the girl thing. I'm not sure it improves the picture.
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In the beginning there was Bond.
Thereafter followed a score of women spies, comic spies, teams of spies, and, more lately, kid spies. This 2003 variation, "Agent Cody Banks," falls into the latter category, a movie about an adolescent operative in the mold of "Spy Kids." Cody must be a part of the same government agency that trained the Disney youngsters. Maybe we'll even see all of them together in the same film some day, providing they never grow up. In any case, Cody Banks is a little older than the Spy Kids and, consequently, more into the girl thing. I'm not sure it improves the picture.
The girl thing does, however, make the movie more appealing to young teens who probably shunned the "Spy Kids" films as too juvenile. That and the fact that the star of "Cody Banks" is Frankie Muniz, big-time TV guy from "Malcolm in the Middle," helped the film do pretty well at the box office. Well, those things and an advertising campaign that blitzed every network on television for what seemed like months. I could have sworn I'd seen the movie long before I'd ever seen the movie.
Muniz does a good job as the leading character, a fifteen-year-old who's too shy and tongue-tied to talk to a girl, even when the fate of the world depends on it, which it does. But he's up to the real action quickly enough. In the opening scene he uses a skateboard to save the life of a child in a runaway car. All in a day's work for junior CIA agent Cody Banks.
Meanwhile, in Hong Kong at the headquarters of the evil organization known only as "E.R.I.S.," nefarious plans are afoot to turn a scientist's creation of nanobots, microscopic robots that can be programmed to do anything, into a secret weapon to conquer the world. The key to stopping this dastardly scheme is find somebody who can get close to the scientist's teenage daughter and through her learn more about her father's invention. What do you mean, whom do they get for the job? "Banks, Cody Banks."
Cody's been trained in CIA summer camp to do everything: fight, shoot, drive, fly, everything, that is, except romance a girl. There he's a complete wash. So the first half of the picture concerns Cody's attempts to get acquainted with the young lady, while the second half is occupied with the usual action antics of an exaggerated spy thriller. I'm not sure which part I liked better; neither, perhaps, since nothing new, fresh, or creative happens in either case.
As usual, the CIA is all-powerful, knowing everything about everybody on the planet. Not quite like real life where apparently the Agency often depends on unconfirmed, secondhand information for its ever-changing "intelligence." Oh, well, it's only a movie. The Agency gives Cody all the necessary gadgets for this sort of work: X-ray glasses (and what teenage boy wouldn't want a pair of these in high school?); a cell phone with a holographic display; a wristwatch that emits an electric shock; a super-duper, jet-powered skateboard; a portable pen-laser-blow-torch combination; you know, standard spy-issue equipment.
The script is also big on the usual teenage fascination for flatulence, dog poop, prep-school bullies, and the like. Poor Muniz gets placed in one clichéd situation after another in a plot that comes straight from early Bonds, "Mission Impossible," and "Spy Kids." Two things I did enjoy, however: first, the sight of a classic Ferrari Dino GT that Cody gets to drive, the 1973 Italian automobile still one of the most beautiful designs ever put on the road; second, a cute PA announcement at CIA headquarters: "Will the owner of the silver Aston Martin please move your car. You're in a handicapped zone."
Co-starring in the movie are Hilary Duff as Natalie Connors, the beautiful young lady Cody must pick up on. All scientist's daughters are beautiful; it's a law. Angie Harmon plays Ronica Miles, Cody's sexy CIA handler, guide, and partner. No matter what her attire, Ms. Harmon's navel is showing; it's a law. Keith David plays the head of the CIA. Keith David is the name everybody gets confused with David Keith; it's a law. Then there's Ian McShane as Brinkman, the evil head of E.R.I.S. It's sad to see so charismatic an actor as McShane, TV's Lovejoy, reduced to playing a cardboard villain who is neither sardonic nor menacing. A shame, as well, to see another good Hollywood heavy, Arnold Vosloo of "The Mummy" fame, in the part an E.R.I.S. henchman of no distinction.
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[release]10980[/release]