Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams (2002) Review

 Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams (2002) 4/10

"Do you think that God stays in heaven because he too lives in fear of what he has created?"

Hello everyone and welcome back to another shit show review. Today I’ll be going over the second Spy Kids installment. Spy Kids 2 was released on August 7, 2002 with the director being Robert Rodriguez, who did the first movie. This movie fucking sucks, even for low quality children’s entertainment and I can’t believe I forced my mom to let me watch this in theaters. Watching this as an adult, this shit sucks lmao. But even then this movie had its moments that made me not entirely hate this movie.

Our story follows Carmen and Juni as they travel to a secret island to take down a mad scientist that wants to destroy the world with an anti-electrical device called the Transmooker. Along the way, we meet 2 more members of the Spy Kids division of the O.S.S: Gary and Gerti and their father who is the new head of the O.S.S. Turns out that Donnagon Giggles (the head of the O.S.S.) wanted the Transmooker for his own personal gain and he was only using Dr Romero (the "evil scientist") as a scapegoat. Dr Romero was a former O.S.S. scientist in the genetics department that wanted to make a mini zoo to sell to children. While working on his project, he accidentally crossed genetic samples and made animal mutations (gorilla and spider, goldfish and cat, bull and frog, etc). Discovering he can do this, he decided to make a mini zoo 2.0 with these cross bred creatures. Feeling he needed them to be a bit bigger, he made a growth serum. Accidentally spilling it all over his tiny creatures, they grew to enormous size. They then start to inhabit his island as he hides in his house/fortress-thing from them as he's afraid of what he's made. There's also this side plot where Juni falls for the POTUS' daughter and it's really cheesy but kinda cute too.

The plot for this movie is ok at best. I enjoyed the plot for the first movie better than this. Thinking back on it now, there's nothing really memorable about the movie even though I just watched it an hour ago. The more I think about it, this movie doesn't have the same charm that the first movie did. Sure it helped flesh out this world, but there's no life lesson or anything you can take away from this movie.

My main issue with this movie are all the plot holes in it, especially during the first half. There are certain plot points and things said that don't add up. The worst scene in the movie has to be where Carmen and Juni are at the submarine dock getting their mission details from Uncle Felix and then Gary and Gerti show up and receive their mission specs. There's so much bullshit here and nobody says anything about anything. Gary and Gerti never question why Juni is back so quickly from his leave, their mission name, why Carmen and Juni have the Utuka mission, and Felix never questions why they have that mission too. It was publicly announced to the entire organization that Gary and Gerti got the Utuka mission yet here's Carmen and Juni getting the mission. This scene is so frustrating and very hard to watch. There’s also that sweet sweet McDonald’s ad placement lmao.

Music is very bland and uninspired. There's no memorable music in this except for the end credit song where Carmen is singing. I only remember this because of how stupid it is, both the song and the context around it. As the credits are rolling, there's a scene playing. Carmen and Juni are undercover as musicians and are suppose to perform in front of a crowd. Uncle Machete gave the two devices to help sell the idea that they’re musicians. Carmen gets a special mic that'll make her sing and Juni gets a guitar that'll play for him. They perform and make asses of themselves. After the performance is done, the two return to Machete saying that the devices worked. He then says that he forgot to put the batteries in which leads to us presuming that the performance they did was real. This is retarded. If someone says they can't sing or play guitar and then they do it with no sweat, I can't even fathom this illogical mess. If you have a natural talent for singing, you would know and playing a guitar professionally takes a lot of hard work and practice. It's not something you can pick up and play instantly. Sorry but this extra bit really infuriated me.

I do gotta say this though. The acting for this is actually pretty good, especially for Carmen and Juni. Everybody else was decent, but nothing notable. The CG effects for this film are very cheesy, very late 90's - early 00's. It's shitty in a charming way. I do like the designs for a couple of the bizarre creatures on the island (such as the spider monkey and the Slizzard).

Overall, this is a bad sequel to a good movie. It's not the worst thing ever, but the movie has a lot of problems with it. The story is very problematic with both its core story and the plot holes. CGI is not the greatest and heavily dates the movie. Now that I think about it, I believe this movie was made to make toys and merchandise. Hell, I had the McDonalds toys for this movie. It's a cheap cash grab that only little kids will enjoy. This movie did give us one of the greatest lines in movie history: "Do you think that God stays in heaven because he too lives in fear of what he has created?" Honestly hearing Steve Buscemi say this is the best part of the movie. The dude literally brought religion into a fucking kids movie and I'll never let this go. Anyway, I can’t really recommend this to anyone, even if your child is a fan of the original movie.

Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time.

This is Zorgak, signing off.