Tags: Alan Cumming | Alexa Vega | Antonio Banderas | Carla Gugino | Daryl Sabara | Robert Rodriguez

Antonio Banderas stars in this high-tech Harry Potter with a McDonald's tie-in. And - surprise - it sucks, even for the kiddies.

This is one smelly little turd of a movie - utterly devoid of any originality or charm, and so loaded down with clumsy effects it drags like two hours on a standing room only night tram.

Every yawning step of this crapheap feels just like what it is: a merchandising devise geared toward the 3rd Sega generation. The plot of Spy Kids is an incomprehensible mess about a Pee-wee Herman-like kiddie-TV host (Alan Cumming) who's turning secret agents into grotesque monsters (soon to be at a toy stores across the USA), and searching for a miniature super-computer that will enable him to unleash an army of humanoid-child robots to take over the world.

Writer-director Robert Rodriguez (El Mariachi, From Dusk Till Dawn) has no gift for whimsy, and he directs like he's remaking one of those action-gutbusters that made him deservedly famous.

Thinky says: Life is far too short to see this. And put Rodriguez in the "victim of success" column.