Agent Cody Banks: Destination London (PG)
Opens June 17

Cast: Frankie Muniz, Anthony Anderson, Hannah Spearritt
Director: Kevin Allen

Fly-weight Spies

By Kenneth Chiu • UrbanWire

I’m still struggling to come to terms with the sequel to surprise hit Agent Cody Banks. Agent Cody Banks: Destination London is definitely not one of the better films made this year, to say the least. I know, I know, this isn’t a show for adults, but one for pre-teens; which is why I’m still racking my brains in an attempt to think like a child, so that I may afford this show a fairer critique. Let me give it a try.

Frankie Muniz of Malcolm in the Middle fame returns as Banks, the pubescent mini-spy on the premises of Kamp Woody, which looks like a generic summer camp. What sets it apart from regular camps we attended as kids is that the campers mumble code, are decked in camouflaged fatigues, have camo-paint smeared on their pimply faces, practise underwater assault with scuba equipment, man hovercrafts and 4-wheel-drives. Wow. You guessed it; Kamp Woody’s the clandestine training grounds of the CIA for its covert operations prodigies.

Things go routinely at camp, with the kiddie spies learning the ropes to the labyrinthine industry of high-stakes espionage while sneaking about the compound trying to cream each other. When the camp commander, Diaz (Keith Allen) hatches an insidious plan of global domination and makes away with a top secret mind control device, the CIA move in on him. A team of elite troopers storm the camp but are thwarted by the spy-lings led by Cody who has been tricked into believing that it was a routine exercise. Highly trained Special Forces foiled by kids, a likely story.

Cody is held responsible for the escape of Diaz and is put on the case by the CIA Director (Keith David) to bring Diaz’s evil plan to a screeching halt. He’s flown off to London to join a posse of international teen musical geniuses, hosted by Jo Kenworth (Anna Chancellor), under the guise of a clarinet wunderkind, to watch for Diaz and his suspected liaison, Lord Kenworth (James Faulkner), Jo’s husband.

In London, Cody meets his bumbling handler, disgraced ex-CIA agent Derek (Anthony Anderson) and his uber-pimp spy mobile. Fully exploiting the booming woofers and LCD screen of Derek’s heavily modified car, they pump R&B through the streets of London. Then, there is the mandatory outfitting of our mini-spy with the spy-style gear to get him out of sticky situations. This job falls on the shoulders of the weird and repulsive Neville (Paul Kaye), a James Bond-esque “Q” who speaks in spasms and practices the worst hygiene. Regurgitating his tea when it is too hot, he is the epitome of infantile barf bag jokes. Director Kevin Allen really should take comedy lessons, lest his attempts to be funny reduce the show to a farce.

Cody is armed with a rather miserable array of gadgets: a watch with fibre-optic capabilities for peeping, explosive Mentos sweets and a set of dentures that greatly enhances the wearer’s hearing, excellent for eavesdropping. The kids would have been bored. To complete his rather sorry goody bag, he is also given a yo-yo whose only purpose is to open shut lift doors later in the show. Guess we’ve seriously misjudged the exceedingly strange Neville who seems gifted with the ability to foretell the future.

At the Kenworth residence, Cody with his self-playing clarinet, meets the rest of the celebrated young musicians and they engage in a food fight during their first meal together. The makers were desperately trying to make up the minutes it seems. Among the group of teen whizzes is Emily (Hannah Spearritt), a British flutist who shares a mutual attraction with Cody. Somehow, Emily looks older than she is, much older. Oh it might be that, off the silver screen, she’s actually a 23- year-old member of former Brit pop group S Club 7. Apparently, feelings aren’t all that Cody and Emily share. They happen to be in the same line of work too. Upon this revelation, Emily suddenly suffers a bout of schizophrenia and is transformed from sassy teen to sensual older woman. Ummm…?

The pair discovers that Lord Kenworth and Diaz have hatched a plot at the Buckingham Palace, where their orchestra is to perform in the presence of distinguished guests like the Queen and Tony Blair look-alikes, intending to mind control the latter into doing their evil bidding. Cody and Emily divulge their secret identities to their fellow musical mates and enlist their help to foil Kenworth and Diaz. As a delaying tactic, Berkhamp, the double bassist from the Eastern bloc gets to live his rock star dreams with a heavily remixed rendition of Edwin Starr’s “War”, much to the pleasure of the Queen and her distinguished company. They get up to sing along, shocking.

The movie is often found wanting, reproducing clichés and low on ideas. The production reeks with jokes of bad taste too. Though Cody Banks should be a self-doubting, somewhat naïve and impressionable mini-spy, grappling with growing-up pains and learning the ropes of espionage, however, he comes across as a pretty sharp character. Make no mistake, that doesn’t mean good acting on his part, Muniz is still pretty stiff and seems trapped in his angsty kid archetype of Malcolm. Attempting to evaluate this film as a pre-teen/teen would, I just might enjoy the farce, just.