Spy Kids: All the Time in the World
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 If you're making a comedy, then don't try to put toilet humor in it after you saw an actress's baby defecate.
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Spy Kids: All the Time in the World, also known as Spy Kids 4D: All the Time in the World, is a 2011 American 4D spy adventure comedy film written, co-produced, and directed by Robert Rodriguez, and is the fourth and final installment in the Spy Kids film series.
Plot
OSS agent Marissa Wilson is attempting to capture a criminal named Tick Tock, who purchases a mini-disk stolen from OSS. Despite being nine months pregnant, she continues her pursuit against the admonitions of her boss Danger D'Amo. Tick Tock is captured and the mini-disk, which contains information on a weapon of mass destruction called Project: Armageddon, is retrieved.
At the hospital, Marissa meets her spy-hunting TV host husband, Wilbur, who thinks she is an interior decorator, and her two stepchildren, twins Rebecca and Cecil. After giving birth to a daughter, Maria, she decides to retire. Rebecca does not accept Marissa as a replacement for her deceased mother and delights in playing pranks on her. Attempting to strengthen her rapport with Rebecca, Marissa gives her a red sapphire necklace that she says her parents gave her when she was Rebecca's age.
The media report that time is speeding up at an increasing rate. A criminal mastermind called the Time Keeper claims responsibility, saying he will unleash Project: Armageddon as a punishment upon a society he believes wastes time with meaningless pursuits instead of treasuring time with one's loved ones. The Time Keeper demands that Tick Tock bring him the Chronos Sapphire, which is revealed to be the jewel in the necklace Marissa gave Rebecca. The OSS calls Marissa out of retirement and instructs her to bring the Chronos Sapphire with her. When Marissa asks for it from Rebecca, it further strains their relationship. When Marissa arrives at OSS headquarters, she discovers that the box Rebecca gave her did not contain the jewel.
Tick Tock's henchmen break into Marissa's house, and Rebecca and Cecil are directed to take refuge in a secret Panic Room, where they view a video of Marissa informing them of her secret career. The twins escape and go to OSS headquarters, where Marissa's niece and their step-cousin, Carmen Cortez, give the twins a tour of the defunct Spy Kids Division.
As Marissa pursues Tick Tock, Rebecca and Cecil go after the Time Keeper. Their search leads them to a clock shop, which is Tick Tock's headquarters. The twins view a video of the Wells Experiment, a 1930s time travel project that resulted in a boy being frozen in time, and which reveals the nature of the Chronos Sapphire in Rebecca's necklace. The twins are captured by Tick Tock but are rescued by Marissa and Carmen, though Tick Tock manages to steal the Sapphire. Wilbur's investigations lead him to the clock shop, but he is shocked to learn that Marissa is a spy. When he destroys the footage that he and his cameraman filmed of the battle, he is fired and becomes estranged from Marissa and the children.
As time continues to speed up, OSS agents are debriefed on the Wells Experiment. The OSS shut down the experiment and placed the device under lockdown. Among the agents assigned to the case is Carmen's estranged brother, Juni Cortez. Bitter over their estrangement, she tosses his ID badge in the garbage. The twins confront Danger over the fact that his watch is similar to the one worn by the Time Keeper, and his name is an anagram of "Armageddon." He reveals he is the Time Keeper and imprisons them. When a group of OSS agents led by Marissa, Carmen, and Juni return to the clock shop to confront the Time Keeper, he freezes the agents in time using circuity in their ID badges and does the same to 18 major cities. Juni, whose badge was thrown away by Carmen, manages to free Marissa and Carmen.
Danger reveals his father was head of the Wells Experiment, and he was the boy frozen in time. His father spent the rest of his life trying unsuccessfully to set him free. The OSS managed to shut down the experiment with the Chronos Sapphire. This freed the boy, but he was now a man in a boy's body, and his loved ones were all dead. Now Danger plans to use the Armageddon Device to go back in time to be reunited with his father. Cecil deduces that Danger has already tried this multiple times, and each time he comes back worse, pointing out that Tick Tock and his minions are all versions of Danger. Rebecca, who sympathizes with Danger, tells him he should use what time he has wisely, instead of trying to acquire more of it. When Danger's time vortex opens, he steps through and meets his father in the past, but returns to an elderly man, and realizes that Cecil was right, as he could not change anything. He shuts down the device, and Tick Tock is apprehended by Wilbur, who is reunited with Marissa and the children. Carmen and Juni announce they will co-lead a revived Spy Kids program, while Rebecca and Cecil become recruiters of new agents, including the kids watching the movie, breaking the fourth wall.
Production
Development
Robert Rodriguez was prompted by an incident on the set of Machete (a stand-alone film focusing on the Spy Kids supporting character of the same name) to start envisioning a fourth main film in the Spy Kids series. Star Jessica Alba had her then-one year old baby Honor Marie and was dressed to appear on camera when her baby's diaper "exploded". Watching Alba change the diaper while trying not to get anything on her clothes prompted Rodriguez to think "What about a spy mom?" Production on the film was officially announced in September 2009, six years after the release of Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over, by Dimension Films. The script for the film was completed by Robert Rodriguez in December the same year. The title for the film was officially revealed as Spy Kids: All the Time in the World as well as an August 2011 release window, which was later updated to an August 19 release date.\
Filming
Filming began on October 27, 2010, and concluded in February 2011.
Release
Home media
The film was released on DVD, Blu-ray, 3D Blu-ray and on DVD + Blu-ray + Digital Copy combo packs on November 22, 2011.
Why It Doesn't Save the World
- The main problem with the film is that it lacks the charm and wit of the first two films. Even the third film, while disgraceful to the Spy Kids franchise, is better than this.
- It introduced the infamous 4D Aroma-Scope. To summarize, scratch n' sniff cards were given to those who watched them in theaters, and whenever the characters smelled something in the movie, a number came up on-screen, and moviegoers were instructed to scratch that number and smell it. On paper, this is an interesting concept since it's using Smell-O-Vision in a scratch-n' sniff form, but in execution, most, if not all of the numbers have the scent of a fart!
- The premise is weak.
- Unfunny and weak humor that mainly consists of time puns and toilet humor like when Maria defecates in her diaper.
- The story is a rehash of the first Spy Kids film; even then, the time travel elements make it surprisingly confusing near the end.
- The infamous "Power of Puke" scene.
- The villain Tick Tock has a ridiculously non-intimidating, high-pitched voice.
- Laughably bad dialogue, like the scene where police officers tell Tick-Tock to freeze, and he tells them to be careful what they wish for. They never said “I wish” so Tick-Tock's quip doesn't make sense.
- Speaking about the villain Danger D'Amo who is the main villain plans to save his father which is all right on paper. But for some reason, he can't save his dad when he could just save his younger self from getting him trapped in time. This not only makes time travel confusing even for simple time travel stories but also makes the film have an idiotic plot!
- Apparently, Robert Rodriguez got the idea for this film when he was filming Machete with Jessica Alba. During filming, Alba's baby, Honor Marie, defecated in her diaper and she had to go change it. While Rodriguez was watching her, he got the idea of a spy mom. The movie was inspired by a baby defecating...which explains so much.
- Some of the characters are unlikable:
- Rebecca is an unlikable character, as she hates her stepmom and blames her for not telling her that she is a spy, although the purpose of a spy is to be secretive.
- Rebecca and Cecil are Mary Sues who learn a skill near the end of the film without training.
- Marissa is a bad mom at the beginning of the film. She goes on a dangerous spy mission while pregnant with Maria, such as getting in a high-speed car chase and fighting a few of Tick-Tock's minions, which could've led to a miscarriage!
- Unresolved plot holes, like how Maria gained super strength without any explanation.
- While Carmen and Juni do thankfully return from the first three films, as well as "Uncle" Machete in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo, absolutely none of the other characters from either one of the first three movies (excluding Carmen, Juni, and "Uncle" Machete) return, such as Fegan Floop, Alexander Minion, "Uncle" Felix, Sebastian the Toymaker, Devlin, Donnagon Giggles, Cesca Giggles, Gary Giggles, Gerti Giggles, Carmen and Juni's grandmother, Dinky Winks and his son, Dr. Romero, or even Carmen and Juni's parents Gregorio and Ingrid, not even at least in cameo roles. Thus, this makes this installment much less faithful to the first three Spy Kids films! (Though the only absence that can be explained with proper justification would be Carmen and Juni's grandfather, due to his actor Ricardo Montalban's passing in 2009.)
- The film was released eight years after the third film, so the idea for this movie was stale by the time it was released.
- This film was what ultimately killed the Spy Kids franchise, and even had a wasted premise. This film could have easily been another sequel that would have been the grand finale that should have focused on an older Carmen and Juni, as an ultimate "coming of age" story, but instead, we got this, where Carmen and Juni's roles were reduced to cameos instead that probably wasted Alexa PenaVega and Daryl Sabara's performances!
Redeeming Qualities
- That scene where that man, not Tick-Tock, saved his father and he dies of old age can be emotional and it has a good lesson to the audience.
- The soundtrack is decent, thanks to Robert Rodriguez and Carl Thiel.
- The special effects are an improvement over the special effects of the first 3 films.
- Hey, at least Carmen and Juni are back! Even though, they sadly were reduced to cameo roles (which wasted Alexa PenaVega and Daryl Sabara's performances), who cares? It's still better than not having them at all. Also, "Uncle" Machete does appear in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo (it's a very subtle one though)!
Reception
All the Time in the World was met with even worse reviews from most critics, audiences, and fans alike than Game Over, and currently holds a 22% on Rotten Tomatoes with an average of 3.9 out of 10 and a critic consensus that reads "Burdened by a rote plot and unfunny scatological humor, All the Time in the World suggests that the Spy Kids franchise has run its course". On Metacritic it has a score of 37 out of 100 based on 14 reviews, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". CinemaScore polls reported that the average grade moviegoers gave the film was a B-plus on an A-plus to F scale.
Box office
Spy Kids: All the Time in the World opened at #3 on its opening weekend with a domestic gross of $11,644,672. The total domestic gross would later go up to $38,538,188. In foreign countries, the film made $47,026,122. Overall, the film made $85,564,310 against its $27 million budget. The film was a box office disaster.
Sequel
Dimension Films had announced the fifth installment in the Spy Kids film series, shortly following the release of All the Time in the World, with intentions to have the cast return in their respective roles. However, the project entered development hell, and with the movie's new children actors Rowan Blanchard and Mason Cook aging through the years, the project was seemingly abandoned.
By January 2021 however, a relaunch of the franchise was announced as being is in development, as a Netflix exclusive film. Robert Rodriguez returned as director, in addition to serving as co-writer with his son Racer Max. The project was a joint-venture production between Skydance Media and Spyglass Media Group. Netflix acquired the distribution rights for the film. Gina Rodriguez, Zachary Levi, Everly Carganilla, Connor Esterson and Billy Magnussen serve as the starring family of the production. The filmmaker later explained that Armageddon incorporated a new family because so much time had passed since All the Time in the World, and so he wanted to incorporate a new set of characters before returning to what came before.
Future
In September 2023, Rodriguez confirmed that Netflix intends to develop additional Spy Kids movies, with the filmmaker expressing hope to begin production on a sequel the following year. Rodriguez confirmed that he intends to bring back "legacy characters" from the previous installments in any future movies.
Trivia
- Robert Rodriguez did not want to make a fourth film but was forced under contract to make it.
Comments
- 2010s films
- 2010s media
- Action films
- Adventure films
- Box office bombs
- Comedy films
- Family films
- Science fiction films
- Live-action films
- Sequel films
- Sequel in-name only films
- Independent films
- Films with misleading posters
- Movies that killed the franchise
- Bad media
- Weinstein films
- Unfunny films
- Gross-out films
- Bad movies from good franchises
- Films aware of how bad they are