In Spy Kids, and its new sequel Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams, these kinds of things are no longer left up to the imagination. Now, we can see what's happening. Everything that Carmen and Juni Cortez are goin' through on that screen is the fantasy of every child that's watching them. Every kid wants to be a Spy Kid. What kid doesn't dream of his parents ACTUALLY being international spies and their house is REALLY a high-tech fortress of sorts with cool gadgets hiding under every cushion and behind every picture frame?

Well, that was the first one. This time, we know we're spies and this time the fantasy that's being played out is the Sinbad, pirate fantasy. Time to get rid of the plastic laser guns. That sword that I bought at K-Mart is coming into play now. We get to battle weird creatures in far away lands. Yup, this is every kid's dream come true. And we don't even have to bother imagining it 'coz it's right up there on the screen for everyone to see.

Luckily for us, Robert Rodriguez has one heck of an imagination. You know Rodriguez, the director, writer, editor, composer, stunt coordinator, special effects caterer of the original Spy Kids, as well as more adult fare like Desperado, From Dusk Til Dawn and The Faculty. After seeing the two stars of "The Misbehaviors," his segment (and the best segment) from Four Rooms, he commented on how they looked like a couple of tiny James Bonds. Then, according to eyewitnesses, a little light bulb appeared over his head and within a few years, Spy Kids was born.

The first film was one that I almost didn't get to see. For some reason, I never got around to seeing it in theaters, although I wanted to. Then finally, it his home video (this was before I got my slick DVD player) and my little brother bought (or rather, my parents bought) the movie on VHS and one day, I accidentally watched the movie. I was in the middle of doing something (writing, I believe) and it was playing in the same room. Well, I couldn't concentrate on what I was trying to do because I kept having to watch the screen to see all of these crazy things that sprang from the mind of Rodriguez! The next day, I sneaked that video into my own room and watched the movie by myself in all of it's VHS pan & scan glory! I was hooked.

There were several things that made that film seem unique. There were the gadgets: things that only a kid would think up, things that we as kids would think up when playing spy in our back yards. And yet, here they were on the screen, in real life. There was the humor: just the perfect blend of smart jokes and fart jokes, shaken together to come up with a formula that pleased everyone from the kids to the grandparents. Then there was the fact that, even though it was a kid's movie, it didn't talk down to you. There's nothing worse for a kid than being talked to like you're an idiot (unless perhaps, you ARE an idiot).

With Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams, Rodriguez has kept the old formula intact. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, right? He's given us just enough new gadgets to satisfy us, but thanks to the plot of the story, those gadgets don't get to be shown off as much. This time, Carmen and Juni (Alexa Vega and Daryl Sabara) travel to a mysterious island where they're looking for something called a "Transmooger Device" and the man who created the thing (the always cool, Steven Buscemi). The Transmooger has the ability to either control or destroy the world, depending on who gets their hands on it. Of course, it's never explained exactly how the thing works, but it somehow manages to cloak the mysterious island and shut down anything electronic (hence, the no-gadgets thing). Anyways, none of that matters as much as the dangers that are ON the island when Carmen and Juni are searching for the device.

This is where the really cool stuff comes in: The crazy Buscemi scientist, Romero, decided to get creative one day and started creating his own species of animals. Very cool animals, the kinds that -- again -- only a kid should be able to think of. Bull-Frogs, which looks like a bull, but has the back legs of a frog for hopping. Spider-Monkeys which has eight legs on the bottom and the torso of an ape, kind of like a really screwed up centaur. There are too many of these creatures to name, and too many to remember. Just look out for the Spork.

The cool thing about these creatures is their ingenuity, not their believability. The special effects don't blend perfectly with the live-action, but that only adds to the fantasy, cartoon-like aura of the film. With a budget of only $35 million, it's a wonder that they look as good as they do, but this is Robert Rodriguez we're talkin' about; the premiere blockbuster-on-a-budget man in Hollywood. The thing is, even if he had a huge budget (which he was offered and turned down), Rodriguez probably would've had the creatures looking just as unrealistic as they do now.

These aren't Jurassic Park characters. This is pure Harryhausen. There's a very stop-motion kind of feel to the animation that's completely intended. Spy Kids 2 is Rodriguez's homage film. There are countless references to films that Rodriguez grew up on and loves. This is his love letter to those films. Films like any of the old Harryhausen creature flicks, and of course, the very blatant tribute to Jason and the Argonauts. There's homage to Raiders of the Lost Ark, Lord of the Rings and countless others. Rodriguez is a film geek like me and he proved it with this film. He's one of us; he's one of the good guys in Hollywood.

Once again, he's assembled an all-star cast for this film, much like he did in the first one. Some of the biggest stars in the film appear in nothing more than short cameos simply because of their love for the material and what it represents: good clean fun that's not going to bore the pants off of anyone over the age of 10. Among the smaller parts, you'll see Bill Paxton, Christopher McDonald, and briefly reprising their roles from the first film, Alan Cumming, Tony Shalhoub and Cheech Marin. Back again are Antonio Banderas and Carla Gugino as the Cortez parents and this time, the grandparents -- former spies in their own rights -- are in town, played by Holland Taylor and Ricardo (KHAAAAANNN!!!) Montalban. In the bad guy role, we've got a couple of snotty nosed spies, Gary (Matt O'Leary, who you saw in Frailty) and Gerty (Emily Osment, who looks so much like her brother Haley-Joel that it's creepy) Giggles, who just happen to be the children of the new, not-so-nice director of OSS, Donnagan Giggles (Mike Judge, the genius behind King of the Hill). A cast like this just proves how much people want to work with Rodriguez, and it's because he churns out these kinds of movies.

Is Spy Kids 2 deep cinema? Not exactly. In fact, the closest thing to "deep" in the whole movie is a single line uttered by Steve Buscemi ("Do you think God stays in Heaven because he fears what he's created?"), but most of it is just silly kids jokes, unbelievable action, cartoonish special effects... so don't expect any of life's questions to be answered. But it's fun. It's every kid's fantasy. It's movies like this that remind me of what it was like to be a kid and causes part of me to wish I could go back to that kind of innocent fun. But since I can't, I'm thankful that I can pretend... I can use my imagination... and for 90 minutes, I can be a kid again.