August 22, 2003
Spy Kids (2001)
[2 - OK]
I moderated a movie panel at a convention last year where I praised director Robert Rodriguez (Mariachi, El (1992), Desperado (1995)) for his innovative and inexpensive film making but made fun of him for going commercial with the kid-flick Spy Kids (2001). One of the people in the room challenged me on my bias with the argument that Spy Kids was actually a good movie and worth watching. I added the movie to my to-watch-list and just got a chance to do so when I noticed a DVD copy sitting on the shelf of my local library.
I thought Spy Kids had a good sense of humor, good timing and was generally quite fun. I was a bit disappointed to some filming mistakes (crew reflected on a window, some cheap special effects) but thought the look of the film was quite unique and entertaining. I always love Antonio Banderas and thought that Alan Cumming stole the scenes he appears in.
I was disappointed that the DVD did not include any special features (at all), specially since Rodriguez had given mentorship to would-be filmmakers in commentary and his '10 minute film school' clips on previous DVDs. I doubt I will bother with the sequel Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams (2002) but am very curious to see what Rodriguez does when equipped with a 3-D digital camera in the upcoming Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over (2003).
The mistake you made was not that Spy Kids is not commercial, it is, but rather that all his movies truly are. El Mariachi is a wonderful movie with clever and ingenius filming (the DVD extras on this are fantastic). But it was meant for Mexican or Hispanic TV. The intellectual themes attributed to it by some critics were totally unintended and a by-product of indie film culture and Rodriguez having to work around obstacles. Desperado proved that. It's really just a sexy, cool version of El Mariachi. Again, he does amazing things with his budget, but it's fully commercial in style and substance. The only area where Rodriguez does stand out as making a statment or doing something not traditionally commercial is in his casting of entirely Hispanic actors. You have to think that with Spy Kids there was some studio opposition. Thank goodness he's thrifty and can probably get his way.
I really enjoy Rodriguez's work. But he's not a Tarantino or Shyamalan when it comes to thought behind the work, not that those two are Fellnis or Bergmans (thank god), but they definitely have a much higher proportion of intelligence in their work to go along with the entertainment.
Posted by: Nick on August 22, 2003 11:55 PMYou are quite right, even his early films are commercialy not artisticly driven. I think what impressed me was how sucesfull he was at making a commercial hit with no financial backing in Desperado. Now that he has the finances he can continue to make Hollywood movies.
Posted by: Leopoldo on August 28, 2003 06:15 AM
