Filmmaker Robert Rodriguez is back for a new and rebooted chapter in his Spy Kids movie franchise. In Netflix’s Spy Kids: Armageddon, a new brother and sister duo must venture out to save their kidnapped parents with the same overdramatic but fun flair that many loved when they first watched the OG movies as a kid.
The official logline from Netflix reads: “When the children of the world’s greatest secret agents unwittingly help a powerful Game Developer unleash a computer virus that gives him control of all technology, they must become spies themselves to save their parents and the world.”
Rodriguez’s original Spy Kids movie hit theaters in 2001 and starred Antonio Banderas, Carla Gugino, Alexa Vega, and Daryl Sabara as the spy family. The film went on to spawn three sequels: 2002’s Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams; 2003’s Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over; and 2011’s Spy Kids: All the Time in the World.
“I’ve just heard from so many families how much they’ve enjoyed these films over the course of their lives,” Rodriguez said in a statement. “And now, a lot of kids who enjoyed the first films as children are parents themselves and enjoy sharing them with their kids.”
In the first trailer for the upcoming fifth installment, which stars Gina Rodriguez, Zachary Levi, Everly Carganilla, and Connor Esterson, the kids speculate that their parents are spies and must be saved. “We have to find mom and dad, stop the bad guys and save the world,” Carganilla’s young character says.
We also see the kids rappelling off a building, walking upside down on a ceiling, and interacting with a cute robot crab. In one of the first-look photos, the entire family is piled into a sci-fi-style off-road vehicle. Combine that with the dramatic entrances while wearing shades, holograms, and not-perfect CGI, and it cements the fact that this movie knows what it is and respects the nostalgia factor of the OG movies.
Spy Kids: Armageddon premieres on Netflix on September 22, 2023.
This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, Sky Kids: Armageddon being covered here wouldn’t exist.