Spy Kids: All the Time in the World 4D (PG) 2 stars
Jessica Alba, Jeremy Piven, Joel McHale, Alexa Vega, Daryl Sabara
Director Robert Rodriguez
You'll like this if you liked Sky Kids 1-3, Thunderbirds, Speed Racer, Night at the Museum, Nanny McPhee, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Power Rangers
Don't be fooled by the 4-D in the title. It's a gimmick. Not a very original gimmick, mind you, and not one that even works.
It refers to this fourth instalment of Robert Rodriguez' energetic kiddy spy series not only being in 3-D, but in 'Aroma-Scope' 4-D. That's right, smell-i-vision.
When you see a number flash on screen, you scratch'n'sniff the corresponding number on a card, thus adding the sense of smell to the experience.
Sounds like fun, right? Well, it would be a laugh riot for kids — if it had worked.
Numbers popped on the screen as candy, cheese puffs, slime, vomit, farts and soiled nappies flew off it. But no matter how hard we scratched, rubbed and sniffed, it didn't work, driving my little Spy Kid into a villainous rage.
Judging by the lack of squeals in the audience, it didn't work for them either.
It should have sent sugared-up tykes into squeals of delight and guffaws of disgust. "Yum — blueberry." "Eww — baby poo." But I've since found the cards didn't work for at least one US critic too.
Clearly, this 4-D thing has a long way to go. It's a pity, because without the extra-sensory experience, Spy Kids 4 is a fairly dull, unfunny and lifeless affair.
Marissa (Jessica Alba) is stepmum to pre-teens Rebecca (Rowan Blanchard) and Cecil (Mason Cook), who think she's always hiding something.
She is — she's a dashing super-spy.
When her nemesis (Jeremy Piven) teams up with mad scientist the Time Keeper to speed up time and hasten the apocalypse, she recruits Rebecca and Cecil into the OSS network to stop him.
While parents will certainly lose 89 minutes of their time here, the kids are joined by their wisecracking robot dog (voiced by Ricky Gervais) and original Spy Kid Carmen Cortez (the now strikingly beautiful Alexa Vega).
I feel bad for rising star Joel McHale, who leads the fabulous TV comedy Community and has little to do here but bring a degree of charm as the kids' unwitting dad. He deserves a lot better.
It's fast paced, brightly coloured and filled with cheesy physical humour and corny one-liners. Even more than the first three Spy Kids films, this one looks cheaper than ever, with every shot done to green screens or with CGI, while the costumes and set design are all very loud and low budget.
Spy Kids 4 is not much of a step above a Power Rangers movie and, given that the smell-i-vision thing was done before in the 1970s and 80s, you’d think they’d had enough time to get it right.
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