A Review of Spy Kids: Armageddon

For some late millennials, the Spy Kids franchise holds a special place in their hearts as a vaguely remembered but beloved series. The movies, especially the original in 2001, were wild and grand adventures with exaggerated stakes. If you were a kid, Spy Kids (along with the sequels in 2002 and 2003) were the ultimate fantasy, with cool gadgets and parents who were international super spies (played by Antonio Banderas and Carla Gugino).

Spy Kids: Armageddon, Netflix’s reboot of the franchise with the original writer-director Robert Rodriguez, understands the nostalgia it’s evoking, although it doesn’t always succeed. But to be fair, it doesn’t really have to because like the original, the 94-minute film is primarily targeted at children.

Similar to the original, the reboot takes place in Austin, Texas, where the Tango-Torrez family lives a seemingly normal life in a technologically advanced house. Unbeknownst to their children, Terrence (played by Zachary Levi, channeling humor from his Chuck days) and Nora (played by Gina Rodriguez) are active super spies who possess the Armageddon code, capable of hacking into any device in the world, or maybe all of them at once.

Tony and Patty just want to play video games, but they’re frustrated by their dad’s strict tech rules. He considers their chosen video game as mindless, whereas they see it as training.

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One interesting nod to adults is the game’s creator, a power-hungry tech baron called The King (played by Billy Magnussen), who reads as a parody of Elon Musk. The King wants the Armageddon code to force everyone and every electronic device to play video games. As experts in gaming, Tony and Patty are perfectly positioned to discover secret codes and battle the robot video game villains unleashed by The King.

Thus begins a lively, sunny battle for world domination, involving fantastical tools and taking place primarily in The King’s retro video game castle filled with chunky polygons. Rodriguez maintains his ability to capture a child’s sense of adventure and absurdity, although it lacks the deranged Thumb Thumbs from the original. The fantasy of actually becoming the video game character and embodying the hero remains intact.

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