Carmen and Juni Cortez' parents keep an amazing secret from them - before their kids were born they used to be top international spies. When they are kidnapped by the villainous Floop and Minion, who are building a robot army of copies of world leaders' children, the two kids must learn lots of spy stuff fast so they can rescue them. Along the way they enlist the help of their estranged Uncle Machete, escape from the double-agent Miss Gradenko and confront evil robot versions of themselves.
This is a wonderful action-packed comedy spy movie which rattles along non-stop and is packed full of funny characters and Rodriguez' tremendous visual style. It somehow manages to romanticise spy movies and cheerfully send them up at the same time, and there are many terrific action/effects scenes (the kids' escape in a mini-submarine, the jetpack chase scene, a helicopter ride). The terrific cast give it their all - I particularly like Gugino, Trejo and Patrick, but everyone is great and Vega and Sabara hit just the right notes as the kids. They are kinda cute, but they argue good-naturedly; Vega has a great long-suffering quality and Sabara is just plain irresistible as the put-upon Juni, who not only has to save the world but get rid of his warts too. The movie is zippily shot by Guillermo Navarro (who has a walk-on as a minister), has some great music by Danny Elfman and features some cool special effects makeup by the Kurtzman/Nicotero/Berger group. Rodriguez made this movie as a labour of love for his children and it shows in every frame - it's just so much fun, and has a great underlying theme of families looking out for each other in the face of crises. He wrote, directed, edited and co-produced the picture, and also co-wrote the music and co-supervised the effects. This is a great director and a man who makes movies to entertain.
This is a wonderful action-packed comedy spy movie which rattles along non-stop and is packed full of funny characters and Rodriguez' tremendous visual style. It somehow manages to romanticise spy movies and cheerfully send them up at the same time, and there are many terrific action/effects scenes (the kids' escape in a mini-submarine, the jetpack chase scene, a helicopter ride). The terrific cast give it their all - I particularly like Gugino, Trejo and Patrick, but everyone is great and Vega and Sabara hit just the right notes as the kids. They are kinda cute, but they argue good-naturedly; Vega has a great long-suffering quality and Sabara is just plain irresistible as the put-upon Juni, who not only has to save the world but get rid of his warts too. The movie is zippily shot by Guillermo Navarro (who has a walk-on as a minister), has some great music by Danny Elfman and features some cool special effects makeup by the Kurtzman/Nicotero/Berger group. Rodriguez made this movie as a labour of love for his children and it shows in every frame - it's just so much fun, and has a great underlying theme of families looking out for each other in the face of crises. He wrote, directed, edited and co-produced the picture, and also co-wrote the music and co-supervised the effects. This is a great director and a man who makes movies to entertain.