Spy Kids: All the Time in the World review
In this article, I will be reviewing the “Spy Kids” series but backwards, starting with the fourth one, then one, two, three. Only because number four has a different cast and main characters. But still includes the ones that were in the originals. Let’s get with the review
PLOT: The plot starts with an undercover pregnant stepmom, Marrissa Wilson, who is on her last mission due to her pregnancy. On this last mission, her water breaks and she gets contractions all throughout the whole time. Marrissa still manages to fly down a zip line, run, go on a high-speed car chase, and fight off many attackers. The mission is to stop “Tick Tock” from buying a “stolen OSS minidisc” that contains information on the “Project Armageddon, the ‘ultimate weapon’”. In the wrong hands, everyone in the world could have frozen in time. Tick Tock after being stopped and arrested, he leaves the scene with “No one ever notices time, until time is gone” with a chilling maniac laugh. This is an early sign of foreshadowing.
Flash forward a year later. Marrissa has her baby, Belle, in this big house with her step kids Rebecca and Cecil and her husband Wilbur. She and her step kids relationship are very on and off, Rebecca, still very sad and in denial of her mothers’ death, takes her anger out by pulling practical pranks on her family. Cecil, on the other hand, has a hearing loss disability but has nothing against Marrissa and really just goes with the flow. Wilbur is a TV host on the show “Spy Hunter” which is very ironic. Keep in mind this whole time that Marrissa has been a spy, no one has a clue, they all think she is a fashion designer.
Tick Tock escapes jail and time in the world is moving faster, they are losing seconds at first but then it turns into minutes than hours. Marrissa, the passionate and caring mother she is, tries to take a step forward into her and Rebeccas relationship by giving her things that mean a lot to her, including a necklace Marrissa’s grandmother had given her which not until a call from the OSS does she realize, contains the crystal to stop the Armageddon device. Things heat up between Marrissa and Rebecca when she has to ask for it back. When Rebecca hands the case back, it is not until they get to the OSS headquarters that Marrissa finds that Rebecca had pulled off another prank and there’s only baby food inside the case, not the necklace. Which puts the kids by themselves and their dog at home in danger because they are being tracked by Tick Tock and his minions to retrieve the necklace.
After being invaded at their own homes, they and there now talking robot spy dog are in the “Panic Room” set up by Marrissa for emergency cases like those. They are forced to fly away to the OSS headquarters where they are picked up by Carmen Cortez, Marrissas’ niece and an ex-spy kids agent (an absolute legend in the business). Answering many questions as she can, she also takes them on a tour of the old Spy Kids gear that was used in the old movies. They get to pick out their favorite gadgets but they are not activated so they are like toys. They are kept safe in a candy-filled room with their talking dog. While Marrissa and the baby are on a mission to capture Tick Tock but end up failing and realizing that it was a setup.
Being as nosy as kids can get, the two decide to take the matter into their own hand and end up teleporting themselves to the layer of the Time Keeper and Tick Tock where they eventually have to get rescued by Carmen and Marrissa. All while there is a big fight scene, Wilbur and his cameraman get lucky and catch everything from far away and that’s their break from a dying and miserable show. After playing back the film, it goes on to show that the spies fighting in the tape, is his family and he does not feel comfortable sharing it with the world which leads to him destroying it and getting fired. A new conflict appears when Wilbur no longer feels comfortable being with his kids because he feels like a failure and is disgusted with his wife for lying, he feels like a fool.
Though Marrissas’ personal life is rough, her work carries on, she continues to try to save the world from the time being frozen with the help of Carmen Cortez and, coming out of retirement, Juni Cortez (another absolute legend). They go back to the shop after being sent by Danger (the OSS leader) to “Save the World” but later realize that they’ve been set up after Danger is revealed to be the Time Keeper planning this all along. And who else knew and predicted this? The kids did and that’s why after being activated by Juni, they try to go there themselves by turning themselves into Tick Tock.
All OSS agents are frozen and Danger is about to open the time vortex to travel back in time to his father. Danger as a young boy was involved in a bad science experiment which led for his father to die in front of him. But Danger was frozen in time and his father tried everything but he couldn’t unfreeze him and he eventually died of old age while Danger was a man stuck in a child’s body. Doing nothing but watching his father suffer until death. That’s why he wants to go back to go see him. But even after a warning from Cecil that he has already tried to do this, that his minions are just his failed attempts and that Tick Tock is also a failed attempt, and even after Rebecca sharing her story with her mother and how instead of wanting more time, but to honor the time spent with loved ones. He enters the vortex to experience the worst pain of his life and growing old with his father just to see him dye, again.
He comes back out the vortex with a message from his father that instead of moving backward in life, to always move forward. So he puts an end into the plan by putting the necklace on the device and destroying it, leading to the unfreezing of the agents and the whole world.
Acting: The acting in the movie is not the best ever. But it is still very believable and the emotions can be seen. But the chemistry and bonds are not like brother and sister bonds.
Aged Well?: The movie can be enjoyed just as good as when you watched it the first time many years later
Thoughts: Final rating is 9/10 because there is a very important message to be taken from this movie. Time is meant to be moving forward, and to never dread on the past. What happened has happened, and you should always honor the people you’ve known. Solid family movie
