Product Description
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The action packed franchise is back... with the next generation
of Kids. Marissa Cortez Wilson (Jessica Alba) has it all:
married to a famous -hunting television reporter (Joel
McHale), with a new baby and intelligent twin step kids, Rebecca
(Rowan Blanchard) and Cecil (Mason Cook). When maniacal
Timekeeper (Jeremy Piven) disrupts her domestic
bliss--threatening to take over the planet--Marissa comes out of
retirement as a top secret agent. With Armageddon quickly
approaching, Rebecca and Cecil are thrust into action. With a
little help from some familiar Kids friends, Carmen (Alexa
Vega), Juni (Daryl Sabara), and their faithful dog Argonaut
(Ricky Gervais) and some mind-blowing gadgets, they just may be
able to save the world.
.co.uk Review
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As happens with many creative people, director Robert Rodriguez
became very interested in making things for kids when he started
having children of his own. Thanks to his blessed events we were
blessed with the delightfully zany entertainment of Kids in
2001, about a brother and sister who join their parents in the
family business of being international superspies. Rodriguez
spruced up his tall tale with lots of colour, pizzazz, and bold,
broad strokes of family-friendly intrigue, plus all the
outlandish gadgets that befit an inventive mind and
technologically inspired spirit like the one that made him such a
dynamic filmmaker to begin with. It didn't hurt that he had
Antonio Banderas and Carla Gugino on board as the parents,
along with two wonderfully talented child stars (Alexa Vega and
Darryl Sabara) as their pint-size secret agent progeny. After two
sequels and 10 years, Rodriguez's reinvigorated resurrection of
the franchise relies on a new family with oblique ties to the
original (only Vega and Sabara return, as full-grown,
full-fledged spies) and does a suitably energetic job of making
zippy fun for the fourth-grade crowd. Others are certainly
welcome to enjoy the excitement, so long as they have a special
affinity for fart, poop, and vomit jokes mixed with bold, pop-art
production design, kid-approved techno gadgets, and special
effects that play up the slapstick nature of the original
Kids ethos. Jessica Alba is the mum this time, a job she's
kept hidden from her TV journalist husband (Joel McHale) and
step-kids Rebecca and Cecil Wilson (Rowan Blanchard and Mason
Cook).
The secret doesn't last long, of course, and the two kids, along
with her bubbly one-year-old daughter (who supplies most of the
poop and vomit), join in the fight against the malevolent Tick
Tock and his mysterious boss Time Keeper. These wacky villains
can manipulate time and plan on creating some sort of apocalyptic
meltdown based on their uniquely nasty ability. That's about the
best description one can give; the plot is extremely convoluted,
but it's pretty much superfluous anyway. The point of the show is
to watch in delighted glee as the kids play with all the cool
toys, the good grownups triumph, and the director makes juvenile
poetry using slapdash digital effects and nonstop, gentle potty
humour to amuse his core audience of enchanted children. Jeremy
Piven has fun playing multiple roles and Ricky Gervais
practically steals the movie (for the adults, at least) with his
riffing banter giving voice to a robot dog in service of the
ing Wilson family. Though it's a far cry from the original wit
and offhand originality of his first Kids adventure, this
fourth installment is ample proof that Rodriguez is keeping up
with what kids want in throwaway entertainment and has the
technical skill to make the visuals pop off the screen to fill in
any gaps of logic or boredom. --Ted Fry