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Agent Cody Banks
Like
a real spy, only smaller.
Too bad
Spy Kids already took that tagline. But what that film
lacked in the size of its leads, it made up for with big imagination.
MGM's foray into young spy territory, Agent Cody Banks,
chooses instead to take the slavish homage route. What it
lacks in imagination, it lacks in originality and excitement.
Strictly
following the Bond formula, the movie is trapped. Quite simply,
Bond keeps topping itself, or at least trying, while Banks
can only play out the clichés in miniature.
Some
of it does work, which keeps fooling the audience into thinking
they're watching a good movie instead of an overworked Nickelodeon
pilot.
Cody
Banks (Frankie Muniz) lives in Seattle, and one morning while
skateboarding to school, he witnesses a toddler in a runaway
car. This incident leads into a pretty well-done opening stunt,
and Banks does his good deed then skates away anonymously.
As far as setting the guy up as a hero, it works.
Cut to
an exotic locale, because this is what must be done. In Hong
Kong, a scientist has been tricked into working for E.R.I.S.,
a deadly criminal cartel led by the ominous Brinkman (Ian
McShane).
E.R.I.S.
has a scheme for turning Dr. Connors' lifework in nanotechnology
into something terribly, terribly evil - obvious to everyone,
of course, but Connors. A perfect example of the oblivious
scientist, the presence of Arnold Vosloo doesn't tip Connors
off that he's fallen in with the wrong crowd.
Luckily
for the film's budget, Connors actually keeps his lab in Seattle,
so one establishing shot pretty much knocks "exotic locale"
off the Bond checklist.
He also
has a daughter, the winsome Natalie, played by Hilary Duff.
At her appearance, adolescent boys hoot and drool, and thus
she plays a pivotal role in garnering an audience. (Has it
come to this? Is it just about the babes? Is this really
a naïve question?)
It turns
out that Cody is part of the C.I.A.'s young agent training
program, waiting for an assignment. Knowing that E.R.I.S.
has something planned for Connors, the CIA activates Cody
to seduce Natalie and find out just what the scheme is.
But since
the leads are fifteen, perhaps seduce is really the wrong
word. Instead, Cody has to get Natalie to wear his ring. In
the only swerve from spy film convention (except Casino
Royale), Cody has no skills with women, and in fact often
comes across to them as being "…in special ed." (The film's
joke twice. Not mine.)
Matched
with an extremely hot handler, Veronica Miles (Angie Harmon),
Cody tries to work past his handicap, which is really only
a handicap for a little while.
The further
the film progresses, the chintzier it becomes, until the last
act becomes a cheap parody of the Austin Powers films, but
on a kid's level. Why does it consistently fail? Because every
set piece is small, and the film fails to build on anything.
With
a huge headquarters in Hong Kong, for example, why would E.R.I.S.
put its actual secret lair in Washington state, especially
when not a single villain in this film is American? And though
the film sets up a "hidden" cool spy car, when we finally
see it, it's boxy, driven for one scene, and then never actually
does anything. Oh, how this film taunts us.
There's
a lot of wasted potential here. Director Harald Zwart stages
the action sequences fairly competently, with some decent
stuntwork and no obvious replacement of Muniz. Though his
storytelling is weak, at least Zwart puts Kaos' Ballistic
to shame.
And any
healthy teen boy has fantasies about being Bond. The problem
is that to make it a palatable teen film (read: one adults
approve of), all the things that kids really fantasize about
you can't show, though Zwart does try to sneak a couple of
x-ray sunglasses gags past. So instead of sex, you get ice
cream. Literally.
It's
also kind of difficult to see the loose morality of Bond work
on an adolescent level. These kids don't have a license to
kill, at least not explicitly so, and yet the only on-screen
deaths are caused by them, not the villains. There's something
very very skewed there.
However,
the actors all have a fair amount of charisma. As mentioned
above, Duff doesn't have to do much more than heave her chest
and show her dimples. But Muniz shows some subtle chops -
as Banks, he has a different physical stance than as Malcolm
on TV. You could believe him as an action star in training,
if he didn't still look vaguely hobbit-like.
In supporting
roles, it gets painful, but only because they're wasted. SNL's
Darrell Hammond injects a lot of humor into the Q role. Keith
David snarls and smirks as the CIA chief.
But watching
McShane in this is like watching Michael Caine in A Muppet
Christmas Carol. It's tragic that Caine will never get
to play Scrooge in a good version of the story, and the same
goes for McShane here. As he flounces around dressed like
Dr. No, he brings quiet menace that really belongs in a real
Bond film. And now it can't.
(A side
kvetch here: McShane has the right outfits, the right kind
of overblown lair, and even the right kind of plan for world
domination - but his sidekick (Vosloo) dresses in cheap track
suits?)
For those
over 18, Harmon definitely commands the screen. If not for
her whiskey voice, I'd say to Warner look no further for your
Wonder Woman.
Kids
are still probably going to eat this up. But guys, you should
know better.
What's
It Worth? $4.50
Obsessive
Fanboy Connection: Angie Harmon voices Commisioner Barbara
Gordon in Batman Beyond, and Keith David voices Spawn
in the animated series.
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