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AGENT CODY BANKS: DESTINATION LONDON
1/2 *

Even though it came out less than a year ago, the kiddie-spy extravaganza "Agent Cody Banks" made so little of an impression on me that I had to look back to my original review in order to refresh my memory. However, enough people apparently dug it so we now have "Agent Cody Banks: Destination London" and the good news is that I don’t anticipate any similar retention problems; when you see a film this insultingly awful, you don’t shake it off that easily. This time around, our underage CIA-agent hero (an increasingly awkward-looking Frankie Muniz) is sent to London to track down a rogue agent (Keith Allen) who is working on a plan to take over the minds of world leaders with a mind-control machine. (As the film inelegantly puts it, "He wants to control minds-in a bad way!") As his cover, Cody is forced to pose as the American representative in a youth orchestra, where he gets to meet a fellow musician (British pop-tart Hannah Spearritt) who will, in a "surprising" twist, turns out to...well, if you can’t guess by now, I wouldn’t want to spoil it for you.

There are so many horrible, loathsome aspects to this film that a review threatens to look like a list. There is the weird anti-England sentiment that underscores almost every scene; one true-blue American character refers to London as "this backwater" and declares "Jack the Ripper-please. Now Freddy Kreuger-that was a real serial killer!" (a line which might have been intended as a joke but which doesn’t come off as one) while all the British males are wildly effeminate goons who spill a lot of tea. (By comparison, the Japanese characters that would crop up in W.W.II-era Three Stooges shorts were treated with a quiet dignity.) The action scenes are lackluster and promising ideas are maddeningly left unexplored (why not have all the kids in the orchestra be undercover spies?) so that idiotic stereotypes can be further exploited. (The entire film plays like an infomercial for the joys of American imperialism with a smidgen of "School of Rock" thrown in.)

The one good thing I remember from the original film, now that I think of it, was the presence of Angie Harmon (and her series of form-fitting outfits) as Cody’s handler-this time around, she has been replaced by Anthony Anderson, this generation’s Rerun, so that he can do the same wacky schtick he has done in approximately 357 other films in the last year. This is a move that will no doubt enrage dads and older brothers forced to accompany the little ones to the theater-at least they can take comfort in the fact that the tykes will be just as bored and annoyed with the film as they are. It is only March but I suspect that "Agent Cody Banks: Destination London" will win the "Legally Blonde 2" prize for the most pointless sequel of the year.

1/2 STAR RATED PG

Written by Don Rhymer. Directed by Kevin Allen. Starring Frankie Muniz, Anthony Anderson, Hannah Spearritt and Keith Allen.

THE LOST SKELETON OF CADAVERA
**

"The Lost Skeleton of Cadavera" is a goof of a film that has been designed to look and sound exactly like an old B-level sci-fi film from the 1950’s-the better to spoof it, of course. As someone who has seen more than my share of those films, I will admit that writer-director Larry Blamire has perfectly captured the look and feel of those films; the threadbare sets, the everyday objects badly disguised to look like futuristic machinery and the inevitable Bronson Canyon locations that are as familiar to certain people as the very streets they grew up on. The problem, though, is that after about ten minutes, the initial amusement begins to wear thin and Blamire doesn’t have anything new up his sleeve; apparently, we are supposed to be endlessly amused by the sight of cheap skeletons dragged around by all-too-visible wires and endless expository dialogue because we get more than our fill of them before the end credits.

The result is a strange misfire that sounds good in theory but in practice goes on far too long for its own good -and as bad as the movies that are being spoofed might have been, they were rarely boring. The one fresh element is an entrancingly quirky performance by Jennifer Blaire as "Animala", a creature that looks like a sexy ballerina but moves and acts like the amalgam of forest animals that she actually is. "The Lost Skeleton of Cadavera" has clearly been made with a lot of love and affection and there are a few scattered laughs but they are too few to make it worth the price of a ticket; as a skit in a bigger film (like the titular sequence of "Amazon Women on the Moon"), this would have worked but at 90 minutes, even the most indulgent fan will be begging for mercy.

2 STARS

Written and directed by Larry Blamire. Starring Larry Blamire, Fay Masterson, Susan McConnell, Andrew Parks, Brian Howe and Jennifer Blaire.

NASCAR: THE IMAX EXPERIENCE
*1/2

For those of you who have been salivating over the possibility of seeing slack-jawed, gap-toothed yokels standing 80 feet tall on a giant IMAX screen-and in 3-D to boot-then "NASCAR: The IMAX Experience" will no doubt serve as your own cinematic nirvana. Of course, that is a gauche and inflammatory statement and I realize that (however, don’t send me any notes about the political importance of so-called "NASCAR Dads"-after all, who has been more excluded from the political process than white guys from the South?) but the film doesn’t really do much to dispel that notion. Actually, it doesn’t really do much of anything-it makes a few brief stabs at outlining both the history of the sport and how an event comes together, but it basically serves as a long infomercial without ever really teaching us anything about the strategy that the drivers use to achieve victory (you’ll learn more from that insane sugar packet demonstration in "Days of Thunder")and the one thing you are waiting for-a drivers-eye view of a race-is only utilized for about six seconds. The only thing that you will take away from the film is a sense of astonishment at the sheer number of commercial endorsements that are crammed into it; I realize that such promos are a way of life on the circuit, with every available surface being used to advertise something (I remember the car that had a plug for "The Passion of the Christ" on its hood-sadly, it turned out that, as a result, it took three days for it to get out of the pit stop) but this is the first time I can remember the narration for a film having a plug for AOL shoved into it.

1 1/2 STARS RATED PG

Written by Mark Bechtel. Directed by Simon Wincer. Narrated by Keifer Sutherland

Copyright © 2004 Peter Sobczynski
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While the views expressed by Peter Sobczynski do not necessarily reflect the views of Criticdoctor.com, the Critic Doctor will occasionally examine Mr. Sobczynski's film reviews to bring forth an honest examination of those views expressed.