Agent Cody Banks: Destination London (1/10)

This is a movie made for children. For some reason, teenager Cody Banks (Frankie Muniz) is a CIA agent. He’s sent to London where some nefarious people, one a dentist, put some kind of chip into peoples’ teeth that connects to their brain. This allows the nefarious people to control their actions. They want to implant these things in world leaders, including a brutish President of the United States during an international conference and control them all. Cody and his partner, Derek (Anthony Anderson) are trying to thwart them with the help of another teenager, British Agent Emily (Hannah Spearritt, making her American feature film debut; Spearritt is a member of the popular British music group S Club 7).

Adults will find this film idiotic. There are so many gaps of logic that it would be meaningless to document them. What bothers me is that it’s targeted to children but contains quite a bit of violence. Cody’s a martial arts expert and uses it occasionally. Also, the way they get the chips out of people’s teeth is to punch them in the face. Please don’t ask me to explain this, but when they punch them, the chips plop out, sort of like the Heimlich Maneuver.

I saw this at a media screening that was full of children because the media were invited to bring their children. It didn’t seem to me as if the children were enjoying it much, although I did ask a man if his son enjoyed it and he said he did. I wouldn’t recommend it to children for several reasons. First is the violence. Second is that there is nothing to be learned from this movie. Third is that it’s nonsensical. I don’t think that movies should be made for children that make no sense or that contain scenes that impressionable children could believe that are, in fact, impossible.

March 6, 2004

The End

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