On Letterboxd, the five Spy Kids movies have an average user rating of 2.28 out of 5 stars, accompanied by said users’ grievances about the films’ “immature” storylines. On the other hand, taking the average of my Letterboxd ratings of the films brings the franchise to a whopping 4.5 out of 5 stars. This clear lack of media literacy displayed by my fellow Letterboxd users has rendered the general public unable to see what Robert Rodriguez’s magnum opus has managed to achieve: the instilling of valuable life lessons in viewers by providing insightful societal criticism.
Spy Kids (2001)
The first Spy Kids film saw multi-hyphenate director Robert Rodriguez introduce to the world Carmen and Juni Cortez (Alexa PenaVega, Daryl Sabara), siblings who discover their parents, Ingrid and Gregorio (Carla Gugino, Antonio Banderas) are spies for the Organization of Super Spies. The movie follows the siblings as they try to rescue their parents, who were kidnapped by Fegan Floop (Alan Cumming), a popular children’s TV show host who kidnaps and turns OSS spies into garish creatures for his show. As they attempt to free their parents from Floop’s Castle, Carmen and Juni encounter multiple adults who try to take them down, one of them being Floop’s henchwoman Ms. Gradenko (Teri Hatcher). She attempts to con the children into giving her their father’s secret research by posing as a family friend, but Carmen and Juni quickly see through her façade. Gradenko underestimates the children’s ability to fight back, which becomes a near-fatal mistake; just as she orders her henchmen to burn down the safehouse the siblings are sheltering in, Carmen sends a jetpack flying into her head, setting her hair on fire.
Armed with just their imagination, Carmen and Juni outsmart every adult who tries to take them down. When they finally make it to Floop’s castle, they are even able to dodge all of the booby traps their own experienced parents fell for. By showing children how Carmen and Juni are able to take down an entire ensemble of adult antagonists, Spy Kids introduces to children the first step to understanding societal criticism: being unafraid to question authority.
Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams (2002)
Having shown his young audience the value of critical thinking, Rodriguez uses the second Spy Kids film to encourage children to dip their toes into social commentary by focusing on society’s tendency to make the wrong assumptions. The audience reconnect with the Cortez siblings, who, after helping to launch the OSS’ new Spy Kids program, have become embroiled in a rivalry against the Giggles siblings Gerti and Gary (Olivia Osment, Matt O’Leary). This rivalry leads Carmen to hack into the OSS system and reassign her and her brother to one of the Giggles’ top-level missions to retrieve the stolen apocalypse-causing Transmooker device from the Island of Lost Dreams.
On the island, Carmen and Juni encounter a variety of giant animal mutants, which include a spider monkey (a gorilla with spider legs), a spork (a pig with stork wings), and a tiger shark (a tiger with a shark head). At first, Juni and Carmen treat them with trepidation because of their appearance. Even the animals’ creator, the exiled scientist Romero (Steve Buscemi), treats them as such — in a now-famous scene, the guilt-ridden Romero asks, “Do you think God stays in heaven because he, too, lives in fear of what he’s created?” However, when Juni ventures to treat a spider monkey with kindness by offering it part of his granola bar, he is granted protection from Gary.
The lesson about not relying on assumptions is also shown through Carmen and Gerti’s relationship, both of whom hold steadfast the belief that the other only exists to take them down. When they have a heart-to-heart, however, Gerti confesses that she believes Gary has allowed the rivalry to take over their duties as spies and Carmen reveals herself to not be as cutthroat as Gerti believes her to be. This conversation leads to them becoming allies by the end of the movie, which shows that the girls have allowed their assumptions of each other to cloud their judgment and cost them the chance to become friends earlier. Through this, Rodriguez teaches children about the importance of treating all living beings with an open heart and making an effort to see the beauty in everything.
Spy Kids 3D: Game Over (2003)
Rounding out the original trilogy, Game Over also marks a turning point in the series by examining a more mature concept: the dangers of social media. In the film, Juni is sent into a virtual reality video game called “Game Over” to find Carmen, who has gone missing on a mission to find the Toymaker (Sylvester Stallone). While in the game, Juni meets and develops a crush on Demetra (Courtney Jines), a girl who gives him an illegal map of the game levels to better aid him on his way to finding his sister. They become close, with her even seemingly sacrificing herself when he is in danger of losing all of his lives. However, when Juni finds Carmen, his sister informs him that Demetra is actually just a computer program created by the Toymaker to trick players, and that she is not a real person. Social media has given people the power to catfish and scam people by using the internet to make up entire existences and lives, and Rodriguez uses the story of Demetra and Juni to teach his young audience about trusting strangers online.
While playing “Game Over”, Juni also meets three other children playing the game who call themselves Francis the Brain, Arnold the Strong, and Rez aka Mr. Cool. From tricking Juni into losing a couple of his in-game lives by convincing him to launch himself into space to challenging him to a racing game, the three attempt to present themselves as intelligent, strong, and overall just better than Juni in every way. However, when Juni and Carmen make it back to the real world and the OSS, Juni meets the real Rez, Arnold, and Francis, none of whom look like how they did in the game. By centering the plot around a virtual reality video game where players are able to craft artificial personas for themselves, Rodriguez hyperbolizes people’s reliance on virtual worlds to mask their real-life insecurities. It is a warning to kids against allowing digital media to consume who they really are and not letting it influence their perceptions of themselves or others.
Spy Kids in 4D: All the Time in the World (2011)
Rodriguez returned after eight years with a new Spy Kids film, this time starring Mason Cook and Rowan Blanchard as Cecil and Rebecca Wilson, whose OSS spy stepmother, Marissa, is Carmen and Juni’s aunt. With most of his original audience well into their pre-teen and teenage years, Rodriguez takes a stab at a more complicated societal construct: capitalism. This is apparent even in the opening scenes of the movie, which show Marissa taking on a mission to hunt down the time-warping criminal Tick Tock while nine months pregnant and going into labor between fighting him. While she is encouraged by OSS head Danger D’Amo (Jeremy Piven) to give up the mission when she reports that she is in labor, there is the question of why the organization had Marissa work until the last minute that she was physically able to do so. Marissa’s experience reflects that of many employees who are forced to work while ill or in dangerous situations because their employer placed profit over the wellbeing of their workforce. Even after her baby Maria is born, the lack of support for maternity and paternity leave in the United States forces Marissa to bring her one-year-old daughter with her while she takes on missions. This detail shows how capitalism has an effect on every aspect of life, as Marissa’s family has also become involved in her work.
Wilbur, Cecil and Rebecca’s TV producer father, is also shown to have fallen victim to the capitalist cycle. As his children beg him to spend even just five minutes with them to have breakfast, Wilbur reminds them of his five-year plan to create a successful TV show, as he believes that the money and success from the project would free him to spend as much time as he wants with his family. In doing so, he displays how those entering the workforce are indoctrinated with the idea that the only value that comes out of working hard and long hours is money, and that money can buy happiness. As a result, people end up working their entire lives just to never get the monetary value they desire, all while their loved ones sit at home waiting with something much more valuable to give freely: love.
Contrary to its position as the lowest-rated Spy Kids movie on Letterboxd (1.6 stars), Spy Kids 4 provides arguably the strongest societal critique out of the series, as the entire plotline is centered around the villain Timekeeper speeding up time to show the world the consequences of neglecting time with their loved ones in favor of wasting time on making money. Rodriguez uses the film to say farewell to his audience as they enter adulthood and inevitably join the workforce, reminding them not to forget what matters most, especially if their job tries to convince them to disregard it.
Spy Kids: Armageddon (2023)
Armageddon expands upon the commentary on the dangers of the digital age presented by Rodriguez in Game Over by introducing the controversy around artificial intelligence and advanced technology to the mix. The kids and their parents Terrence (Zachary Levi) and Nora (Gina Rodriguez) live in a smart home, as do most if not all of the people in the society they live in. AI biometric scanners also grant Terrence and Nora access to their smart car and the OSS office. Essentially and literally, the Tango-Torrezes’ world cannot live without the use of digital technology. This almost mirrors our society, except we are just beginning to dip our toes into the power of artificial intelligence. It is no secret that there have been concerns about AI interfering with the integrity of human-made work and the possibility of it rendering human labor obsolete altogether, and Rodriguez uses this movie as a plea against the interference of digital technology in human connection.
He begins his plea with the introduction of Rey Kingston, the creator of a game called Hyskor, who steals the digital skeleton key-esque Armageddon code from the OSS. Kingston forces everyone to play Hyskor on their devices to gain access to everything from their phones and watches to houses and ATMs. Families are seen in hysterics over being locked out of everything simply because they placed too much trust in the ease AI provided their lives with. This widespread panic refutes the argument that the development of semi-sentient technology is done in the name of knowledge; rather, it is done for the sake of obtaining power, which is what Kingston gains over the world. Kingston is not pure evil, though. He claims that he wants to control the world digitally in order to make it a better place and proves these intentions to be true when he uses the code to delete all nuclear codes. In other words, Kingston’s actions show what can happen when the development of technology is used for good.
Rodriguez is also aware that the audience for Armageddon is largely made up of those who loved the 2000s movies as children and who are now adults themselves. In Armageddon, he shows how adults allowed reliance on technology to grow out of control. Throughout the movie, characters are relentless in finding cheats in the game to beat Kingston, which he abhors. When the Tango-Torrezes finally face off against Kingston and his virtual henchmen, Patty convinces her family to fight fairly without using any digital loopholes, showing that technological power pales in comparison to human integrity. In other words, Rodriguez argues that artificial intelligence is not only a cheap trick but also slowly and sadly eliminates the need for the love and compassion of its creator — humans.
Robert Rodriguez’s Spy Kids movies are full of heart, joy, and important lessons, and it is truly saddening to see those messages fly straight over people’s heads. I encourage past and potential Spy Kids watchers to treat these films with an open mind, just as Juni does with his spider monkey friend.
