Agent Cody Banks: Destination London

Agent Cody Banks 2As any honest parent of a young child will tell you, there are days when you’ll happily shell out $40 in quick cash in exchange for popcorn and a couple of hours of relative peace and quiet. Save “Agent Cody Banks: Destination London” for one of those days … or at least for a rainy one.

While not quite up to the standards of “Spy Kids” — the James Bond of the kid spy movie genre — the first Cody Banks film slid by the on the charm of lead actor Frankie Muniz and the somewhat amusing contrast between his nerd by day/spy by night indoctrination into the CIA.

Like the first film, the fate of the free world is at stake, the adults are mostly dumb and Cody’s love interests are blond, non-threatening, pre-teen fantasy girls (Hilary Duff in the U.S. and Hannah Spearritt in London). On the plus side, there’s no real violence, actions have consequences and the plot moves somewhat logically — if you can get over a magical clarinet which convinces an orchestra of musical protegees that Cody is one of them. This is a movie that knows its audience and doesn’t overshoot.

The kids are likeable enough and it’s difficult not to smile at a movie where everyone from the Queen of England to the dashiki-wearing prime minister of an unnamed country rocks out to “War, What is it Good For (Absolutely Nothing).”

Unless my son inherits my discerning appetite for chick flicks in the next year or so, the next rainy day we’ll probably be cueing up for Cody Banks 3.

Originally published in South Coast Beacon on March 18, 2004.

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