I thought he'd spent himself on flotsam like the last two
Spy Kids flicks, thought he'd really screwed the pooch on a fiasco like Once Upon a Time In Mexico, on which he mistook Sergio Leone's formalist genre Diaspora for a mess of ideas trailing camera flourishes.
It borrows heavily from
spy kid flicks like Agent Cody Banks and, well, Spy Kids, as well as kid / monkey comedies such as Monkey Trouble and Dunston Checks In but eludes their appeal.
Not exact matches
Rodriguez's career is one of the most prominent and curious dichotomies in Hollywood, as he manages to make both super violent action
flicks (Machete, Once Upon a Time in Mexico) and family adventures (the
Spy Kids series), employing several of the same actors in both.
It was going to be Sly's first role in a movie he didn't direct since
Spy Kids 3 - D in 2003, and the two seemed like they should work well together considering their mutual love of gritty action
flicks.
The first movie was an okay effort, with most references being much more enjoyable for older gearheads than
kids, while the second movie was critically panned for shifting its focus from a racing movie to a
spy flick starring Larry the Cable Guy.