Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Kevin Courrier

Blissfully entertaining sequel to last year's Spy Kids, Rodriguez is once again just as good -- if not better -- than the gadgets at hand.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

Like a whacked pinata, it spills over with treasures - and one of the best things to fall out is Steve Buscemi, doing a riotously meek variation on the mad-scientist-with-cracked-lenses-and-lab-coat bit.

Film Threat K.J. Doughton

Rodriguez knows kids. No doubt kids will be clamoring to get acquainted with Spy Kids 2, the best sequel to emerge from a children’s franchise in the past several years.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Rodriguez is that rare filmmaker who doesn't draw a hard, fixed line between entertaining kids and grown-ups -- he knows that in order to understand what will delight kids, you have to know what will tickle adults as well.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

The movie is a gaudy, noisy thrill ride -- hyperactive, slightly out of control and full of kinetic, mischievous charm.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

The Cortez family flies into action with the same testy family dynamics, silly humor and cool gadgetry that animated the first Spy Kids.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Though it's longer and more elaborate than it needs to be, it shares its predecessor's smart but relaxed sense of humor, a sophisticated imagination and the ability to be sharp and playful without being malicious.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

The rare sequel that magnifies the scope of the original without diminishing the fun.

Austin Chronicle Marrit Ingman

This is joyful filmmaking, imbued with an infectious, giddy enthusiasm.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

It's a wonderfully silly family movie that holds its audience in high regard.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Has enough heart and smarts to recommend it as one of the season's worthier family entertainments.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Has once again caught lightning in a bottle and unleashed it on audiences, blending humor, adventure, and a lot of nifty special effects-enabled gadgets and creatures into a movie that provides 1 1/2 hours of unfettered entertainment for children, grandparents, and everyone in between.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

The inventiveness is still superior and the network of fiends and family is extended.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

A children's movie done with genuinely youthful spirit and an easy self-kidding mastery of its own high-tech gadgetry.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The whole film has a lively Mexican-American tilt, from the Hispanic backgrounds of the young actors to the surprise appearance of none other than Ricardo Montalban, as Grandpa, in a wheelchair with helicopter capabilities.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Though slightly lacking in the warmth of the first, should no doubt please audiences.

Variety Robert Koehler

The moments of inspired originality are all too infrequent. There's enough eye candy and marvels on screen, however.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

The action is so relentless that after a while things start to feel hollow, but Rodriguez still seems to believe the moral articulated at the end of the first film -- that keeping a family together is the real adventure.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

Rodriguez has the chops of a smart-aleck film school brat and the imagination of a big kid, and they come together to remake the world in the image of its young audience. It's more amusement park ride than adventure, which in this case is exactly the demographic he's reaching for.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

What's lacking is the simplicity that made the original.

Village Voice Jessica Winter

The poised Vega and pleasingly phlegmatic Sabara are resolutely uncute performers, and the reach-out-and-touch-it gadgetry carries a homey scent of proactive nostalgia. Spy Kids 2 is an island of lost Circuit Cities.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

In Spy Kids 2, Rodriguez tries to hold his family-spy saga together with the digital equal of rubber bands and chewing gum.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

To the delight of gadgetheads and the dismay of the rest of us, Spy Kids' paraphernalia is better developed and considerably more fun than its story.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Eye-catching and entertaining but less inspired than the original.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

There's way too much CGI gadgetry, some inventive, much simply flashy in the worst kind of video-game way. The kids are nearly lost in the glitz.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

The plot is tired, the energy sputtering, the jokes less manic. "Spy Kids" was a shot out of nowhere; Spy Kids 2 feels like a shot from someplace tiresomely familiar.

New Times (L.A.) Robert Wilonsky

It's far more than merely disappointing that Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams lacks the charm and wit -- and humanity --of its predecessor. It's dispiriting.

LA Weekly Ernest Hardy

This time around, writer-director Robert Rodriguez has stumbled badly, creating a clunky, gadget-happy film full of characters -- even returning ones -- about whom it is hard to care.

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

One overly busy (not to mention shopworn) story, which regurgitates everything from H.G. Wells's "The Island of Dr. Moreau" to the herky-jerky monsters of Ray Harryhausen to James Bond to "The Mummy."