Spy Kids (PG) - Odeon

STEP aside James Bond -- the Spy Kids have just stolen your thunder. This is, without a doubt, the best kids movie I have ever seen.

Robert Rodriguez is one of the hottest action directors around and his "in your face" style proves ideally suited for this kind of fantasy hokum.

All the very best children's stories work because they entertain at both child and adult levels and thus are fondly remembered and subsequently passed down through generations. I have no doubt that Spy Kids will become a cult classic and still be around in years to come for my seven year old son to show his own kids.

Antonia Banderas and Carla Gugino are Gregorio and Ingrid Cortez, doting parents and ex-spies (two of the very best in the field) who are called out of retirement to crack a case where several of their former colleagues have gone missing.

It soon transpires that the villain is Fegan Floop, a kiddies TV presenter (Alan Cumming), who has hatched a fiendish plan to supply the US military with super-strong clones. Gregorio and Ingrid are captured and it is left up to their two children Carmen and Juni (Alexa Vega and Daryl Sabara) to come to the rescue.

Spy Kids is one of the most inventive movies I've seen in years and although many of the characters are not entirely original -- for instance Fegan Floop is a hybrid of Willy Wonka and Pee Wee Herman -- the chosen actors are nothing short of perfect, playing their roles straight and never once falling back on sentimentality or cutesy.

The action sequences (and there are plenty) are simply breathtaking and used entirely to drive along the story; there is quite literally nothing here that is superfluous to the plot. Vega and Sabara are wonderful discoveries and probably the most convincing screen kids I can think of.The script is laugh-out-loud funny and the effects combine both fantastical and high-tech design for totally plausible results. It's a real rollercoaster, slick, crazy and incredibly satisfying.

Sensational... bring on the sequel please!