AGENT CODY BANKS

Cool yet nerdy teenage spy-recruit Cody Banks gets a challenging assignment from a gorgeous, oversexed CIA "handler," and the kid comes sailing through. Sort of.

CAST: Frankie Muniz, Hilary Duff, Angie Harmon, Cynthia Stevenson, Martin Donovan

DIRECTOR: Harald Zwart

Harmon mentors Muniz A very special training day

"Agent Cody Banks," a trite and overlong 007 adventure for the junior high crowd, scarcely strays from the formula that adolescent males of all ages find so alluring: Dapper spy, equipped with the latest in supercool gizmos, outwits megalomaniac obsessed with world domination…The accouterments include such musts of the genre as hot chicks and even hotter wheels, ear-damaging explosions and Xtreme stunts…Sorely lacking in suspense, humor or originality, ‘Agent Cody Banks’ aspires to the lowest rung of the peanut gallery. If you only live twice, spend both lifetimes avoiding it." --Rita Kempley, The Washington Post

"Imagine James Bond as a suburban American 15-year-old, and you have ‘Agent Cody Banks,’ a high-speed, high-tech kiddie thriller that's kinda cute but sorta relentless…It has a lot of skill and energy, but its wit is more predictable and less delightful. It's a well-made movie, to be sure, and will probably entertain its target audience." --Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

"This Frankenfilm comes lumbering out of the laboratory of the Danish director Harald Zwart, any trace of personality surgically removed and replaced by a fully road-tested cliché …Some of the violence here feels uncomfortably authentic; a greater element of fantasy and playfulness would have defused it." --Dave Kehr, The New York Times

"It's either the shrewdest of conceits or the most cynical of ploys: ‘Agent Cody Banks’ puts typically juvenile spy jinks (Vin Diesel-tested maneuvers like driving dangerously for no good reason and ogling girls with X-ray glasses) back where they belong: in the hands of a qualified juvenile…one has to wonder whether tutoring tweens in the objectification of women (including Angie Harmon as Cody's den mother-cum-dominatrix boss) is acceptable collateral damage." --Scott Brown, Entertainment Weekly

"The moral--and the term is used loosely--of ‘Agent Cody Banks,’ a lackadaisical spy movie starring the increasingly irritating Frankie Muniz as a teenage CIA agent, is that adults shouldn't underestimate the intelligence of kids. Well, guess what--that's exactly what director Harald Zwart is guilty of, with this illogical, thrown-together claptrap…The cheap-looking special effects, embarrassingly clunky attempts at humor and one-dimensional characters are bad enough, but the PG-rated movie's most offensive crime is its uncomfortably lewd interactions between adults and kids." --Megan Lehmann, The New York Post

"At last, an action picture not aimed entirely at 14-year-old boys! ‘Agent Cody Banks’ should thrill 15-year-old boys, too…the repetitious script--cobbled together by no fewer than five writers--shows interest in nothing beyond action-centered plot gimmicks and tame romantic shenanigans… I'm sure it will earn a small fortune in its first weekend or two, and be on DVD counters everywhere in plenty of time for summer vacation." --David Sterritt, The Christian Science Monitor