Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams

Almost Halfway

Robert Rodriguez is a creative guy. He has a talent for eye-popping visuals, as evidenced by the amusement park that opens Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams. These are some frightening entertainments, and they almost look real. Rodriguez is fond of the flexibility of digital filmmaking, and he has the ideas to live up to that potential. He's also good at creating characters that aren't idiots, even when most writers would make them idiots just to make the hero look good. Spy Kids 2 in particular gives the heros not just the two loving and intelligent parents from the first film, it throws in a pair of intelligent and loving grandparents played by Ricardo Montalban and Holland Taylor. What's sadly missing from Spy Kids 2 is over-the-top zaniness. Steve Buscemi is reasonably cast as the semi-mad scientist, but he isn't given anything interesting to do with the part. The competing spy team is a nice idea, but the overall plot doesn't zip along quickly enough, or with good enough diversions, to really take flight. I look forward to the day Rodriguez uses his considerable talents for a truly wondrous movie.