Maddy (Stewart,
Jodie Foster’s daughter from Panic Room) is a young teen
who idolizes her dad, a former mountain climber, and spends her
time either climbing against her parents wishes or hanging out
with her two friends, Gus (Thierrot) and Austin (Bleu), at her
dad’s go-cart track. When a sudden illness threatens to leave her
father paralyzed and only $250,000 for an experimental surgery
will save him, Maddy and her two friends decide to pull off a bank
heist at the bank where her mom is currently installing a security
system. Since they have the advantage of knowing the security
system and each teen brings some unique skill to the team, they
just could pull it off and save her dad’s life.
CRITIQUE
Catch That Kid
tries to follow in the footsteps of the successful Spy Kids
and Agent Cody Banks franchises, but unfortunately it fails
to deliver the originality, fun or spirit of either. Kids will
still get a kick out of the story (bank heist with kids, cool!)
and will like the chase scenes involving supped up go-carts (which
basically ripped off The Italian Job, even the exact
music), but you can’t escape the fact that the plot is just too
laughable.
Also, the adult
characters come off so cartoonish it becomes grating (especially the
supremely awful James Le Gros camping it up horribly as an idiot
security guard at the bank). The teens, however, turn in terrific
performances. Thierrot and Bleu bring just the right amount of energy,
and Kristen Stewart brings an engaging seriousness to her role that
keeps it interesting.
The ending was a
redeeming surprise and helped change a somewhat morally questionable
kid-oriented film back into family-friendly entertainment. The fact
that these kids are glorified for trying to rob a bank, for Maddy to
use her sexuality to manipulate her two friends, and that they try to
outrun the cops on go-carts down a busy city street at night using
nitro (while holding onto a three-year-old) is definitely questionable
family-friendly entertainment. But the ending is all heart-warming and
sweet, as you would hope it would in this type of film.
The film is
painless enough, but never as exciting or inventive as you would hope
it would be. That exact film was called Spy Kids.
THE VIDEO
The transfer is
actually not very good, it was grainy at times (especially in the
night and bank scenes) and the overall visual clarity was poor. It
seems like the studio didn’t spend much when they brought this to
DVD. Not only is the transfer poor but also there are virtually no
extras and the packaging is unspectacular. The DVD presents both
widescreen and fullscreen versions of the film.
THE AUDIO
20th Century
Fox presents Catch That Kid in Dolby 5.1 Surround Sound and
the quality is actually terrific. The sound is the best part of
the disc. The dialogue, sound effects, music, and background noise
are perfectly balanced.
THE EXTRAS
Not much here
to speak of. They decided to dump an animated short from Fox’s
animation studio that made Ice Age and they also have
commentary from the three teen stars.
Scrat’s Missing
Adventure: Gone Nutty – Scrat, the little squirrel from Ice Age who
always found himself in big trouble, is at it again trying to harvest
acorns without something horrible happening to him (or to the world
for that matter). This is a very funny short, with crisp and clear
animation and great sound.
Commentary from
Kristen Stewart, Corbin Bleu, and Max Thierrot
– The commentary from the three teenage stars is amusing in that it
really sounds like a bunch of teenagers sitting around and watching a
movie. They say things like “dude, look at my stupid face”, “this is a
fatty song”, “this part is sooo cool”, and “ewww, my ears make me look
like Dumbo”. I challenge anyone to sit through an hour and a half of
that, even kids would find it annoying.
FINAL THOUGHTS
While not very
original or imaginative, Catch That Kid offers up some decent
entertainment for the preteen set. It is far inferior to the Spy
Kids trilogy and even Agent Cody Banks; the script is
sloppy (at best), the adult characters are cardboard cutouts that do
nothing but bring the film down, and it gives a mixed bag of messages
to kids that parents might not be thrilled with. But the three
teenagers give energized and wonderful performances and it is a
halfway-decent adventure story.
