Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London

Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London

I’ve been trying to hypnotize myself into the brain of a kid the right age for “Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London,” but either I never was that age, or I haven’t reached it yet. I can enjoy the “Spy Kids” movies; I’m not without range. But this movie seems pre-digested, like those kits where it takes longer to open the box than build the airplane.

The film opens at a secret summer camp where CIA trains teenagers as junior James Bonds. The opening scene, indeed, is uncanny in the way it resembles the prologue of David Mamet’s “Spartan.” In both films, characters in combat uniform with lots of camouflage paint on their faces creep through trees and try to cream one another. That’s not Mamet’s high point.

Cody Banks (Frankie Muniz) is a smart and resourceful kid who thinks there may be something fishy at the camp, which is run by Diaz (Keith Allen), love child of Patton and Rambo. After an undisclosed plot is revealed, Cody finds himself on assignment in London, where his handler is Derek (Anthony Anderson) and his job is to stop bad apples from CIA gaining control over a mind-control device that goes inside a tooth and turns its wearer into a zombie.

It’s quite nifty: At one point, its mad inventor fits it to a dog, which then sits upright at a piano and plays a little tune reminding me inevitably of Dr. Johnson’s observation that when a dog sits on its hind legs “it is not done well; but one is surprised to find it done at all.” The dog is impressive but no pianist, and Derek watching on spycam with Cody decides he won’t buy the CD.

The agency equips Cody with various secret weapons including Mentos that explode when moistened. Turns out evil master plan involves subverting a conference of world leaders at Buckingham Palace; to infiltrate the palace, Cody must join a world class youth orchestra not easy, since he doesn’t actually play an instrument, but easier than you might think, since his agency-supplied clarinet plays itself. It only knows “Flight of the Bumblebee,” unfortunately.

Hilary Duff, who played Cody’s sidekick in the last film, is absent this time around, and her place is taken kind of by Emily (Hannah Spearritt), a British agent who appears in one light to be possibly a teenager, and in another as if she could be, oh, exactly 23. You may remember that Cody was too busy being an agent to date much in the previous movie; his little brother got more action. (This led to a nice exchange: Cody said most of the brother’s dating didn’t count because it took place in a tree house, and the brother replied, “It does if you’re playing Doctor.”)

The big finish at Buckingham Palace involves look-alikes for Tony Blair and the Queen, and a scene that’s supposed to be funny because the youth orchestra stalls by improvising a song with a funky beat while the Queen boogies with heads of state. Since I am enough of a realist to understand that much of the target audience for this movie does not know who the Queen is or what she looks like, it’s just as well things start moving again pretty soon.

There’s a Mind Controlled food fight that starts well but is mishandled, and a chase through London that is (sigh) merely another chase through London and except for some funny supporting work by the inventor of Mind Control and the guy in the “Q” role, it’s routine. I would supply you with the names of those two entertaining actors’ names right now if half an hour’s research had yielded them; instead all I got was myself signed up for junior agent training at The Movie’s Web site.

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