Just as many Hollywood films are tiresome, watered-down remakes of far better foreign films, “Agent Cody Banks” is a bland and condescending adaptation of an adult action film for a younger audience.

I’m telling everyone at MGM Pictures right now: kids don’t like being spoken down to. The best children’s films, from “The Wizard of Oz” to “Shrek,” don’t pander to children, but work hard to create a fictional world that both kids and adults can be absorbed by. The themes of these films may appear to be simple, but there is the same complexity and depth at work here as one would expect from “The Hours” or “Saving Private Ryan.” “E.T.” is a classic example.

Directly thanks to its depth, addressing issues that range from death to divorce, it is a work that touches the very fears and concerns of the adolescent experience.

And with that bias towards children’s films, I went into “Agent Cody Banks.” Banks (Frankie Muniz) is a student in elementary school, trained one summer by the C.I.A. as a ruthless super spy. He was then returned to his family, who knew nothing of his training, only to wait for the day his country would need his help.

That day arrives when an evil henchman abducts a renowned scientist, Dr. Connors (Martin Donovan), creator of a vicious breed of tiny Nanobots that can be programmed to eat away and destroy just about anything. As one might expect, these bots pose a threat to national security. To infiltrate this organization, Banks must attempt to get close to Connors’ daughter, Natalie (Hilary Duff), and learn her father’s secrets.

The fun moments of this film (and there are indeed some) concern Banks being the kid that he is. To get closer to Natalie, Banks must put the moves on a girl, and his bashful side is a hilarious reminder of those youthful days when our hearts jumped into our throats at the mere thought of the opposite sex.

It is also humorous to watch this young child become an important personality within the C.I.A. A security guard prevents Banks from entering a room, and is berated by the C.I.A. director. Banks is given a treasure’s trove of high-tech gadgetry, a la James Bond. An agency crew actually does Banks’ chores so he can focus on his job.

Yes, these moments could occur in any fish-out-of-water tale, but in “Agent Cody Banks,” they are handled skillfully and receive the laughs they deserve. The serious problem I had with the film, however, was that these moments occur far too sporadically. For the twenty minutes we get to see Banks as just a normal kid going through extraordinary situations, there are another 80 minutes that strip him of this entertaining identity.

Banks’ mission drains the movie of its very character. He leaves school, initiates surveillance, achieves some death-defying escapes, and then returns for a final, explosive confrontation. But, filmmakers, please realize, if we wanted to see this, we would go to James Bond, “XXX” or any Jackie Chan production.

A children’s film, by its very nature, promises something different—interesting characters, some innocent fun and an experience the whole family can enjoy. But Banks, on his mission, could be absolutely anyone. There is nothing unique here. No ingenious plans by a child thinking out of the box. No slick escapes by a child using his size and speed to his advantage. No, nothing at all that would begin to make “Banks” a unique moviegoing experience.

Instead, Banks becomes the standard superhero of movie land. He defeats his much larger adversaries with insane, accelerated, implausible martial arts. He uses gadgets rather than opening his mouth. Perhaps the screenwriters should have interviewed some actual children for a few fresh ideas.

As the explosive climax begins, and Banks not only saves the world but gets the girl (was there any doubt), its flaws are glaring. There is nothing to care about, laugh at, or remember. It’s almost as if director Harald Zwart deliberately wanted the last third of the film to erase any memory of Banks’ better moments.

And I cannot end without an observation regarding its suitability for the family. There is no way “Agent Cody Banks” should have been rated PG. Sure, it’s a film about a kid, and its star, Muniz, will be best known by younger moviegoers thanks to his “Malcolm In The Middle” fame. But the appalling violence exhibited by these children, the scandalous, revealing outfits worn by Banks’ boss Ronica (Angie Harmon), which truly devalue this grown woman, and the gruesome deaths of the film’s baddies, where Nanobots are shown consuming their bodies from the inside out, is all just too much.

Not only is “Agent Cody Banks” uninteresting. For some parents and grandparents with accompanying youngsters, it may also be unwelcome.

by: Steven Snyder steven@zertinet.com, Published 2003-03-14