Agent Cody Banks

Agent Cody Banks

Picture James Bond as a 15-year-old American teenager, and you have “Agent Cody Banks,” a fast moving, high-tech kiddie thriller that’s kind of cute and sort of relentless. Frankie Muniz stars as Cody, whose martial arts skills, skateboarding, ceiling walking and extreme snowboarding are all the more impressive when you consider that he goes into action before the CIA has time to provide him with much more than what is in the Bond movies the Q routine with the neat gizmos.

Frankie lives with his parents (Cynthia Stevenson and Daniel Roebuck), who mean well but are so neglectful they don’t notice their son has become an international spy. His CIA handler (Angie Harmon, low cut and sexy) wants him to befriend a classmate named Natalie Connors (Hilary Duff, from “Lizzie McGuire”). Frankie is so tongue-tied around girls that his grade school brother can boast, “Cody’s almost 16 and I’ve had twice as many dates as he has.” Cody fights back (“Sitting in a treehouse doesn’t count”), but the kid is wise (“It does when you’re playing doctor”).

Natalie attends the ultra-exclusive William Donovan Prep School, presumably named for the famous World War II spy “Wild Bill” Donovan, and Frankie transfers there, uses his karate skills to silence hecklers and winds up on a mission to free Natalie’s father, Dr. Connors (Martin Donovan), from the clutches of evil masterminds Brinkman and Molay (Ian McShane and Arnold Vosloo), who want to (we know this part by heart) Attain World Domination through use of the doctor’s inventions microscopic Nanobots that eat through everything.

The movie copies its Bond origins by presenting us with lots of cool toys. Cody gets a BMW skateboard that turns out to have unexpected versatility, and a jet-powered snowboard, and a sports car, and X-ray glasses (Hello, Angie Harmon!) and a watch that will send electricity through your enemies, although I think (I’m not certain about this) you shouldn’t be wearing it yourself at the time.

The set design includes the scientist’s laboratory in underground World Domination Headquarters which has commodious and well-lighted overhead air ducts so that Cody can position himself in comfort directly above all crucial conversations, as students of Ebert’s Bigger Little Movie Glossary will not be surprised to learn. There are also CIA regional headquarters, with a conference table that looks designed by Captain Nemo during a nightmare.

We find out that the CIA runs summer camps to train kids as junior spies, although why Harmon, who appears to be playing Young Mrs. Robinson, is their handler is hard to fathom maybe she’s there for the dads, both in the movie and in the audience. The movie will be compared with the two “Spy Kids” films and looks more expensive and high-tech but isn’t as much fun. It has lots of skill and energy but its humor is more predictable and less delightful.

It’s a well-made film, no doubt about it, and probably will entertain its target audience, but its target audience probably is not reading this review, and you (for whatever reason) are. The difference is that I could look you in the eye while recommending that you see the “Spy Kids” movies; but this one? Not unless you’re a kid.

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