Spy Kids 4: All The Time In The World (2011)
Certified: U
Duration: 89 minutes
Directed by: Robert Rodriguez
Starring: Rowan Blanchard, Mason Cook, Jessica Alba, Joel McHale, Alexa Vega, Daryl Sabara, Belle and Genny Solorzano, Jeremy Piven, Ricky Gervais (voice of)
KRS release

Robert Rodriguez’s first two films in the Spy Kids franchise were excellent children-oriented movies which highlighted the director’s love for zaniness, Japanese anime and tongue-in-cheek.

The third instalment was a hapless film, and the fourth comes complete with scratch and sniff cards. The much touted 4D aspect is a huge letdown as it will only satisfy the most undemanding of tots. The film exudes an aura of overall disjointedness and incoherency with the cast given the most incongruous of lines.

For Marissa (Jessica Alba), life could not be more difficult. Her two stepchildren, Rebecca (Rowan Blanchard) and Cecil (Mason Cook), are making her life hard. They are always playing pranks on her and they are not that happy with the interior decorator who married their dad. Little do they know that Marissa is a retired OSS spy.

She is brought back into service by her former boss, Danger (Jeremy Piven), to counter a plan by the mysterious and nefarious Timekeeper which involves destroying the world through the speeding up of time.

Marissa tries juggling duties which is a little difficult since she has also just given birth to a baby, so Rebecca and Cecil end up joining in on the action.

Accompanied by the robot dog Argonaut (voicing of Ricky Gervais), they are with their backs against the wall as corruption is rampant in the OSS. Former Spy Kids Carmen (Alexa Vega) and Juni Cortez (Daryl Sabara) have to be brought in to provide much needed help.

Child actors Rowan Blanchard and Mason Cook are really irritating and they display little of the charm and cuteness that usually comes with actors their age. Jessica Alba is quite fetching in a cat suit and she manages to look good in what is an otherwise undemanding and inane role. As an undercover stepmother, she is given the dubious honour of throwing baby nappy bombs at her opponents!

Alexa Vega and Daryl Sabara return to the franchise all grown up but acting as if they were still kids. One may also ask why Daryl Sabara’s has that ridiculously perm 1970s hairstyle. Jeremy Piven is reduced to acting like a dolt while Joel McHale as the father and TV reporter Spy Hunter seems to not have any screen presence at all.

Ricky Gervais provides some hilarious voicing as the robot dog Argonaut.

The Timekeeper villain seems to have escaped from a Dr Who or 1960s Batman TV show set.

I can appreciate that the special effects are on the low budget side but here each special effects sequence seems to be a mesh of the bizarre and chaotic in what are amateurish special effects.

The visual effects are mostly cartoon-style but try as they might, the special effects technicians cannot cover up the film’s incomprehensible aura and the overall illogical raison d’être that dominates the film to the tune of flatulence, diaper bombs and vomit bags that sprinkle the film’s lacklustre adventures.