I imagine it's a universal truth that kids think their parents are boring and that everyone else's parents are so much more cool. It wouldn't surprise me even the children of presidents and movie stars think this way.

Carmen and Juni Cortez (Alexa Vega and Daryl Sabara) are exactly those sorts of kids. Carmen begs her mom, Ingrid (Carla Gugino), for her favorite bedtime story, the tale of the two spies who fell in love. As the story unfolds, Carmen and Juni are mesmerized by the adventure, little realizing that their mom and dad, Gregorio (Antonio Banderas), really are spies and it's the true story of how they met.

The kids are dropped off at school the next morning to face bullies and all of the other hazards of being a kid, all the while wishing their parents were a little less normal. Little do they know.

After getting married, Ingrid and Gregorio decided to give up the spy business, yet they each have maintained their contacts throughout the years. They pretend to each other that they are happy and content, but each secretly yearns for one last adventure. Their chance comes when Gregorio learns that other spies have been vanishing. He makes a connection while watching a kid's show, Floop's Fooglies -- it appears that the strange creatures on the show may, in fact, be the lost agents.

Leaving the kids in the care of their "Uncle" Felix (Cheech Marin), the parents dash off to save the world...and are promptly caught by Floop (Alan Cumming) and his evil minion, Minion (Tony Shalhoub). It would seem that as difficult a task as raising kids may be, it isn't quite enough to maintain one's edge as a spy. Ingrid and Gregorio, simply, are out of practice.

Once Felix learns the news, he reveals to the unbelieving kids that their parents are really spies and have been captured. The two kids reach a safe house set up for them and find all of their parents' cool spy gadgets. It's at this point that they decide that it's up to them to rescue their parents.

Spy Kids is a true rarity in Hollywood. This is a film that portrays its two young main characters as the kids they are rather than miniature adults. Sure, they are thrust into the grown-up situation of having to rescue their parents, but they go about it just as you'd expect a kid to. They even spend time engaged in brother and sister bickering at times that are probably inappropriate (such as when being attacked by killer clone robots).

Also refreshing is that the humor in the film is genuinely funny without having to resort to cheap shots and bathroom jokes (with one notable, yet still humorous and inoffensive exception). Despite being about spies and world domination, the film retains a lighthearted quality. Spy Kids makes you feel good about laughing, not guilty.

The film even manages toss a healthy dose of family values into the mix. Carmen and Juni may bicker, but they are still brother and sister and do what they can to protect each other. Avoiding the cliché of mom and dad being on the outs at the beginning of the film and suddenly reconciling after the crisis, Ingrid and Gregorio maintain a stable relationship throughout -- their only problem is that they each still want to be spies.

Lest you get the impression that this is all just a sappy kid-flick, keep in mind that it was written and directed by Robert Rodriguez, the man who brought us El Mariachi, Desperado and From Dusk Till Dawn. He has a distinct, dangerous edge to his films and that isn't lost here. He somehow manages to lend that edge to a family film and the translation actually works.

I should point out that the plot is immensely goofy. To sum it up, Floop's plan is to create an army of robot kids who are fashioned after the children of important politicians and the like. The only problem is that the robots are stupid. To fix this, Floop requires the "third brain," a high tech processor (that just happens to look like a miniature brain), so that he can replicate it and implant it into all of his robots. The third brain happened to be a project Gregorio was working on before leaving the business, thus he and the rest of the Cortez family hold the key to thwarting Floop's plan.

This is the sort of plot that would hold the interest of pre-teens and few else and that's exactly the point. Spy Kids reminds us of what it was like to be enthralled by Saturday morning cartoons as though they were the most important stories in the world. The visual style, dialogue and jokes will charm even those who think they are too old and cynical to enjoy a film such as this.