Spy kids ****1/2

James (age 6): ***** Five stars. I liked the part when the robot kids get the third brain. When he (the Alan Cummings character) pulled all of the brains in the robot children and it was a cool movie and that's it.

Jupiter (age 4): ***** (Google stars) I liked the robot kids. And I liked the mommy and poppy. And I liked the kids.

Justice (age 2): ***** (Google stars) It's a secret. I can't tell you. I liked the robot kids.

Popi: *** 1/2 (3 1/2 stars.) 88 minutes is the perfect length for a family night movie. It was nice to see a kids movie with a couple of good acting parts--Antonio Banderas and Alan Cummings. I thought Alan Cummings was great. The premise that kids discover the secret lives of their parents is a good one and presages their own entry into adult themes. I also like that the movie didn't take itself too seriously though I wished it was a little less frenetic in terms of pacing, because I came at the expense of some character moments. I would have liked to have seen a brother and sister interact when there wasn't a crisis and a parent and child do something together that wasn't plot related. It was fun when it was happening, but boy, it evaporated afterward.

Mama: **** This really was a pleasure to watch. Of course I'm a la Femme Nikita fan (the USA network TV series from the 90's, not the movie) so disguises and gadgets and martial arts moves all play really well with me. I loved the beginning of Spykids, when the daughter asks her mother to tell the story of two spies falling in love, not knowing the mother is narrating her own history. The romance between the mother and father was really fun--Antonio Banderas is a very sexy spy. The brother and sister in the movie were always likable, and there was an awesome chase scene involving rocket packs. I also loved the sets, that seemed to be some Earth Two combination of California and Mexico, with luxury homes atop ocean cliffs, and the sprawling CG cityscape of San Diablo. As so often happens in these movies plot takes over from character. This never bothers kids, but it does lower the parent enjoyment. We know from Monsters Inc. and Toy Story that character and story and cool effects should be able to go hand-in-hand but rare is the script that even tries.

As for the kids, they seemed to greatly enjoy the chase scenes and there was an interest in spies and spy gadgets that lingered even a week after the movie. There were some visual grotesques, spies that had been turned into monsters, and a tense scene where the father character, played by Antonio Banderas, gets hooked up to the monster machine and turned into a design created by his own son. I wasn't sure James, with his very intense imagination, could handle that, but there doesn't seem to be any fallout from it. He's still too obsessed with robbers, from our Home Alone viewing....