SPY KIDS 4D: All the Time in the World

Indian Express Rating: *

How desperate is this that the fourth edition,of what began as a highly entertaining story,is being sold on the strength of a sniff card? Not to talk of an infant at the hip of a new mom who looks like Jessica Alba,and who stays strapped to the mother even as she singlehandedly takes on the bad guys. Or that she deploys the “diaper bomb” when cornered in the villain’s den.

Rodriguez,who knows how to have fun with a film and imbue it with the joy,makes no pretence of trying to do anything here apart from hoping that the past three Spy Kids and the addition of a fourth dimension in the form of a card will do the trick. Even the card – earning the film the tag ‘4D’ – is a clumsy trick,with numbers flashing on the screen when any odour is forthcoming around characters there in. In the dark of the cinema hall,it is hoped,the audience will be interested enough to figure out the number and inhale it all.

The plot involves two new kids (the ones from the previous films,Carmen and Juni,are too old now) who don’t know their stepmom is a retired super spy,and a villain who is making time move faster. He spouts every cliché with the word time in it as threat,as minions with clocks for faces nod around him.

The stepmom of course is called in to “save the world”,assisted by Carmen herself (Alexa Vega reprises her role). The kids again have all the answers and the tricks. That includes jumping through a giant clock that serves as the Timekeeper’s secret lair,while dodging an extra hand that can slice one in half.

Alba looks good in the must-have for a woman spy — tight leather trousers — while the kids’ father (McHale) is royally ignored and amazingly nonchalant. Blanchard as the elder child Rebecca seems to be the only one to have any connect with the spark of Spy Kids and Spy Kids 2.

Time may be speeding up in the film,but chances are,you will find yourself counting minutes to the end.

shalini.langer@expressindia.com