Retrospective Film Review

Spy Kids (2001) • 20 Years Later

Using high-tech gadgets, two kids have to save their reactivated spy parents when they’re kidnapped by an evil, high tech enemy.

Writer, director, editor, producer, cinematographer, camera operator, production designer, VFX supervisor, and composer are just some of the roles Robert Rodriguez performs. This ‘one-man film crew’ was also a childhood role model for me. As a typical boy with an unhealthy love for action cinema — Die Hard (1988) was trapped in the VHS player, Hard Boiled (1992) hard-wired into my brain — I was ecstatic to discover a ‘Latino John Woo’ who could tell the wild story of a gunslinging guitar player for as little as $7,000.

Rodriguez hoped El Mariachi (1992) would interest the direct-to-video Spanish markets but it instead caught the eye of Columbia Pictures, who spent $193K more than the budget just to clean the print. His surprise debut grossed £2M and launched Rodriguez into Hollywood, where he made its sequel/reboot Desperado (1995) and collaborated on Four Rooms (1995), where he forged a friendship with another…