|
 Movie A- |
Video A- | Audio A-
| Extras B+
Alexa Vega, Daryl Sabara, Antonio Banderas, Carla
Gugino, Mike Judge, Ricardo Montalban, Holland Taylor, Christopher
McDonald, Danny Trejo, Cheech Marin, Steve Buscemi
director Robert Rodriguez | Dimension Home Entertainment
2002 | Children - Action - Adventure - Comedy | PG | 100 minutes
Region 1 | DVD-9
anamorphic
widescreen
1.85:1 aspect ratio
| Dolby Digital 5.1
Summary: Alexa Vega and Daryl Sabara
return as Carmen and Juni in this second installment of the Spy
Kids franchise. Now officially SpyKids of the OSS
organization, they undertake what seems to be a benign assignment:
babysitting the President's daughter. They occasionally find some
excitement in trying to rescue the President's daughter out of
self-inflicted predicaments, designed for the sole purpose of getting her
busy's father's attention. But things begin to get a little more
complicated when their SpyDad (Antonio Banderas) is skipped over for the
promotion to become the new OSS director. When an evil band of
MagnaMen (magnet men) steals the Transmooker, a device that makes things
invisible to radar and satellite surveillance, the Spy Kids spring into
action to recover this powerful device that has implications for national
security. Along the way, they encounter and befriend a brilliant
scientist on the Island of Lost Dreams.
My family and I thoroughly enjoyed this sequel, and
found it to be just as entertaining or even more so than the original Spy
Kids movie. Sure, there's some hand-to-hand combat, as you
would expect with spy-action movies, but it's all good-natured and not
overdone. The special effects are first rate, realistically
depicting super cool gadgets, wild amusement park rides, and fantasy
animals. The picture quality and surround sound audio quality are
first class.
What isn't first class is the DVD mastering.
We experienced about half a dozen problems with disc playback, where the
picture and sound would momentary hiccup. This is just another DVD
in the recent string of DVDs from Buena Vista Home Entertainment plagued
with these types of mastering defects. Other than that, it was a fun
evening sharing this movie with the kids.
Special Features: commentary with director Robert Rodriguez; Robert Rodriguez
Ten-Minute film school "Big Movies Made Cheap" featurette;
"a New Kind of
Stunt Kid" featurette; "Lost Scenes", 8 deleted scenes with
optional director's commentary; "Isle of Dreams" music video;
School at Big Bend National Park; "Essential Gear: The Gadgets of Spy
Kids" featurette;
behind-the-scenes montages; Total Access 24/7: "A Day in the Life of
Spy Kids" featurette; still gallery; art gallery; teaser trailer
DVD-ROM features: website access, Spy Kids
"Mega Mission Zone" preview; "Transmooker
Trouble" game
DVD released on 2/18/2003 | Reviewed 2/17/2003
List $29.99 | online $22.49 | order from Amazon.com,
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Additional Notes: Unless we specify otherwise, the
video and audio quality are very good when their grades are "A-"
or better. Only the highest number of channels of surround sound
format is listed (e.g., Dolby Digital 5.1). If there are both Dolby
Digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1 soundtracks, then both are listed. All
DVD-Video discs are backwards compatible with stereo-only playback
systems.
Let us know what you think about this DVD review, write to us at
Staff@TimeForDVD.com.
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Associated equipment used in evaluation: Sony
DVP-S7700 reference DVD player, Sony
KP-61V45 61" rear projection TV (4:3 screen aspect ratio), Sony ES STR-V444ES A/V receiver, four
B&W CDM 9NTs as left/right main speakers
and left/right surrounds, B&W CDM CNT center channel speaker, Monster Cable M-series S-Video cable MSV-500, Monster
Cable Interlink LightSpeed 100 (Toslink) optical cable, Monster Cable
Interlink 400 MKII interconnects, Monster Cable
Original speaker cables in bi-wire configuration with Monster Cable twist-on gold-plated banana plug
connectors, Lovan Sovereign T HiFi audio
rack, and Sony MDR-V600 studio monitor headphones. Our home theater equipment was calibrated
with the Video
Essentials DVD.
Be sure to check out our Top 10 DVDs of the year
2001 and our list of this year's Oscar winners on DVD.
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