SPY KIDS: ARMAGEDDON (2023)
Tagline: Meet The Next Generation
(Action, Comedy, Villains That Don’t Make Any Sense) [PG]
But we'll be spotted by the guards We're not gonna make it.
In this one, Rey “The King” Kingston is dead set on taking over the world’s technology forcing people to play a game he invented, if they want to do anything involving computers. As part of his efforts, he decides to imprison two of his nemesis Terrance and Patty Torrez who happen to be spies for the OSS (which in real life was the precursor to the CIA). This forces the Torrez kids Tony and Patty to try and find them, only when the OSS won’t help them, they take matters into their own hands.
First off, I get that this is a kid’s movie, but I actually enjoyed the installments of the previous films that I saw (as goofy as a few of them were). This one isn’t all that different despite what some of the reviews might have you believe. It’s not meant to be some super sophisticated mind-bending thriller. It’s meant to be cute, goofy, fun and enjoyable. It is all those things to an extent, but it also doesn’t make any damn sense.
The pacing is fine. I thought the soundtrack worked, but for 2023, even in a movie like this nearly all of the effects were sub-par. Maybe that was to keep the budget down because they kind of expected resistance from the audience? This is considered both a reboot and a sequel, so they changed the names of the characters to allow for all that. I do think they kept the spirit of the originals to an extent.
I really like Zachary Levi (SHAZAM!) so it was cool seeing him in this, but he also kind of played the role of Terrace like a more mature SHAZAM!, which is kind of odd even for this movie. I also like Gina Rodriguez (AWAKE) quite a bit so it was great seeing her in this as Patty. She was perfect for this role. Connor Esterson is fine in this as Tony. He’s fairly young so he hasn’t been in very many things thus far. Then rounding out the main cast we have Everly Carganilla (YES DAY) who plays Patty. I thought she did a decent job here. I am glad they were not trying to recast Alexa PenaVega in this, Everly plays a completely different character. Tony also does.
There are some moments of humor, but the film depended more on cool gadgets and a fairly shallow storyline (that as I mentioned doesn’t make any sense). I understood what it was about, I just didn’t really hold together regarding the motive. What was pretty strong was some of the design work. I actually dug some of the characters they came up with here regarding the villain’s henchmen. The fight sequences were more whimsical than well done, but I didn’t mind any of that.
Overall again, this isn’t nearly as bad as the reviews. I never really found myself getting bored, but I certainly wasn’t blown away either. So my advice is to watch this expecting a bit of fun and don’t overthink it. As of the writing of this review SPY KIDS: ARMAGEDDON is sitting at number 85 out of 110 movies I have seen that came out this year. So that means you might not want to have this super high on your “to watch” list unless you just really love this series and are a bit of a completist.
This one gets a 3 out of 7.
GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF DOUBLE R PRODUCTIONS AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY.
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