The film begins with the Cortez family settling down for the night. There are Ingrid and Gregorio, the parents. And there are the kids: Juni the youngest, and Carmen the oldest.

As a bedtime story for Carmen, Ingrid shares with her (and Juni, because they share a room) how she and Gregorio met. After that, Ingrid talks about the children with Gregorio and what she is concerned about.

The next day, Ingrid and Gregorio are taking Juni and Carmen to school. While in the car, Juni watches this kid’s show featuring Fegan Floop and his creatures, “Fooglies.” Gregorio and Ingrid worry. Gregorio gets so distracted that he almost runs over a school guard and a bunch of children crossing the street.

Once he’s at school, Juni gets bullied for his bandages. Gregorio tries to intervene, but one of the bully’s dads stops him.

Later, Gregorio and Ingrid get captured by these robots called “Thumb-Thumbs,” which have fingers as heads.

After school, Juni and Carmen come home. Their uncle, Felix, will look after them.

But then danger comes and the alarm goes off. Felix leads the kids to sanctuary in the house. He also reveals that he’s not actually their uncle. Their parents told him to pose as Felix while protecting them.

Carmen and Juni go into a boat that will take them to the Cortez safehouse. It has various features for different functions.

The kids make it to the safehouse. Carmen is hungry and looks for something to eat. Luckily, she finds something that can turn into a cheeseburger and fries in the microwave.

Meanwhile, Ingrid and Gregorio worry about the children. But the floor breaks open, which makes the situation worse.

Floop also reveals his creation of robots resembling real kids. His goal is to have them control the world.

However, they are still lacking the right amount of intelligence. Floop’s assistant, Mr. Lisp, is unhappy about these android children.

Floop also reveals the “The third brain” to Ingrid and Gregorio. But Gregorio states that the brain was destroyed a long time ago.

While at the safehouse, Carmen and Juni are visited by this strange woman, Ms. Gradenko. She is an agent and claims that she last saw Carmen when she was a baby.

But the kids easily figure out that she is not trustworthy. In fact, she and some others with her try to hurt them. The mini battle ends with Ms. Grandenko’s hair catching fire.

However, Juni accidentally exposes the third brain. This causes more chaos and a robot to steal the brain.

At Floop’s castle, Floop learns how powerful the third brain is and what he can do with it. But he wants to continue his show.

However, someone called Minion has different plans. He even decides to lock Floop in something known as the “virtual room.”

Sometime later, Carmen and Juni have made it to a Southwestern city. They take some new clothes from a shop and then blend in at a playground.

However, two robots that resemble Juni and Carmen attack them. This prompts them to start a fight, although the androids are invincible.

At some point, Juni and Carmen are flying an aircraft over the ocean. They get into an argument and fall into the water. But they do have scuba diving gear and swim to continue their mission.

Juni has to use the bathroom, though. Carmen tells him to hold it. He tries but fails. Then sharks try to attack them. Fortunately, they escape and make it to Floop’s castle.

But conflict is on the rise, especially with the child robots. What will happen next?

I was surprised with how fast this film went. Not only was the pacing quick, but the movie was also merely about an hour and a half long.

The scenes switched at the right times, though. Not one part was too fast or too slow.

That being said, some sections were a little boring. Also, the special effects and CGI were a little unappealing.

Yes, it was the early 2000s, when that type of technology was still in its early stages. But in 2025, it looks kind of primitive.

Some of the CG character designs were a bit creepy, too. A big example is the Thumb-Thumbs.

On the bright side, this film did have a lot of perks. The relationship between everyone in the Cortez family was nice.

Ingrid and Gregorio had sweet relationships with both Juni and Carmen. The kids were likable, too, although they did fight a lot as well as call each other names. But that’s normal with siblings, particularly while they are young. In fact, I think it adds authenticity to their relationship as brother and sister.

The action was just right for a family-friendly flick. I saw this movie in the theaters when I was 7 and not once do I recall getting scared or overwhelmed.

One thing that I feel isn’t a good example for young audiences is when Carmen and Juni talked while scuba diving. That’s not possible in real life. And I thought it was when I was little thanks to this movie.

But that’s a minor moment. Movies do tend to make much of their content unrealistic for storytelling purposes.

Overall, I thought Spy Kids was decent. Although there were more strengths than weaknesses, the number of benefits was only a little higher than the drawbacks.

I give this film 3.5 out of 5 stars.