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88Like 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.
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Blissfully entertaining sequel to last year's Spy Kids, Rodriguez is once again just as good -- if not better -- than the gadgets at hand.
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80Rodriguez 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.
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80Rodriguez 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.
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80The rare sequel that magnifies the scope of the original without diminishing the fun.
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80Though 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.
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80The movie is a gaudy, noisy thrill ride -- hyperactive, slightly out of control and full of kinetic, mischievous charm.
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80The Cortez family flies into action with the same testy family dynamics, silly humor and cool gadgetry that animated the first Spy Kids.
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78This is joyful filmmaking, imbued with an infectious, giddy enthusiasm.
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75The 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.
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75A children's movie done with genuinely youthful spirit and an easy self-kidding mastery of its own high-tech gadgetry.
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75It's a wonderfully silly family movie that holds its audience in high regard.
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75Has enough heart and smarts to recommend it as one of the season's worthier family entertainments.
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75Though slightly lacking in the warmth of the first, should no doubt please audiences.
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75Has 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.
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75The inventiveness is still superior and the network of fiends and family is extended.
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70The moments of inspired originality are all too infrequent. There's enough eye candy and marvels on screen, however.
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70The 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.
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67Rodriguez 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.
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63What's lacking is the simplicity that made the original.
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60The 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.
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50To 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.
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50Eye-catching and entertaining but less inspired than the original.
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50In Spy Kids 2, Rodriguez tries to hold his family-spy saga together with the digital equal of rubber bands and chewing gum.
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50There'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.
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42The 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.
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40This 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.
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40It'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.
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30One 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."
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 10 out of 17
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Mixed: 4 out of 17
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Negative: 3 out of 17
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Nothing's really changed in "Spy Kids 2" compared to its predecessor. In other words, its manageable.
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5
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wasn't as good as the original, but its very entertaining