On the surface, Marissa Cortez Wilson has it all...married to a famous spy hunting television reporter, a new baby and intelligent twin step kids. But in reality, trying to mother Rebecca and Cecil, who clearly don't want her around, is her toughest challenge yet. Also, her husband, Wilbur, wouldn't know a spy if he lived with one which is exactly the case -- Marissa's a retired secret agent. Marissa's world is turned upside down when the maniacal Timekeeper threatens to take over the planet and she's called back into action by the head of OSS, home of the greatest spies and where the now-defunct Spy Kids division was created. With Armageddon quickly approaching, Rebecca and Cecil are thrust into action when they learn their boring stepmom was once a top agent and now the world's most competitive ten year olds are forced to put their bickering aside and rely on their wits. With a little help from a couple of very familiar Spy Kids, Carmen and Juni Cortez, and some mind-blowing gadgets, they just may be able to save the world and possibly bring their family together while they're at it. - skip ad - Genres: Action/Adventure, Comedy, Kids/Family and Sequel Running Time: 1 hr. 40 min. Release Date: August 19th, 2011 (wide) MPAA Rating: PG for mild action and rude humor. Distributor: The Weinstein Company Cast And Credits Starring: Alexa Vega, Jessica Alba, Daryl Sabara, Joel McHale, Alexa Vega Directed by: Robert Rodriguez Produced by: Robert Rodriguez, Elizabeth Avellan, Bob Weinstein

Give me back my Carla Gugino. That’s what I couldn’t help thinking every time Jessica Alba â€" lovely to look at, utterly ordinary to watch â€" appeared on screen in “Spy Kids: All the Time in the World in 4D.” The fall-off in sexiness, soulfulness and wittiness from Ms. Gugino and Antonio Banderas, the parents in the first three “Spy Kids” films, to Ms. Alba and Joel McHale is whiplash steep.

And that’s just one of the ways this fourth “Spy Kids” installment, written and directed, as always, by Robert Rodriguez, comes up short. Visually dreary (don’t bother paying the 3-D premium), lazily yet confusingly plotted, dominated by jokes involving vomit and an endlessly flatulent baby, “All the Time in the World” feels more like straight-to-DVD filler than a chapter in one of the last decade’s most entertaining and sophisticated family-film franchises.



Ms. Alba â€" so luscious in her superspy cat suit that some of the family scenes start to get a little uncomfortable â€" plays Marissa, an aunt of the original spy kids, Carmen and Juni Cortez, who are now adults. Looking forward to her retirement from the spy game (she’s hugely pregnant when the film begins), Marissa joins forces with them to stop an evil mastermind from speeding up or stopping time (it isn’t clear which). The next generation of young agents â€" Marissa’s squabbling stepchildren and eventually her new baby â€" alternately help and hinder.

Alexa Vega and Daryl Sabara return, now in supporting roles, as Carmen and Juni, representing practically the only on-screen connection to the earlier films. (Danny Trejo has an amusing cameo moment as their Uncle Machete, but key players like Alan Cumming, Tony Shalhoub and Steve Buscemi are gone.) Mr. Vega and Mr. Sabara look stiff and stranded in their underwritten adult parts; the new kids, Rowan Blanchard and Mason Cook, exhibit charm and spunk but don’t have much more to work with.

Jeremy Piven, in several roles, tries hard to generate some comic sparks. Most of the (mildly) funny lines go to Ricky Gervais as the voice of a talking cyberdog.

Mr. McHale plays the goofball husband who doesn’t know that his wife is a spy; he’s the host of a reality television show called “Spy Hunter,” the joke being that, as with “Ghost Hunters,” there’s nothing to hunt â€" until it turns out that there is. He’s naturally funny but disappears for long stretches.

Midway through the movie, after the new set of siblings has been let in on their stepmother’s big secret, Ms. Vega leads them into a room where the artifacts of the original spy kids program â€" shut down seven years ago because of budget problems, she says â€" are stored. In the room are what appear to be models and sets from “Spy Kids” 1 through 3, a bit of a self-homage by Mr. Rodriguez that invokes a dangerous nostalgia for the giddy, Indiana-Jones-inside-a-toy-box spirit of those earlier films.

In fact, the eventual message of “All the Time in the World” â€" summed up by the quickly reformed, time-manipulating villain as, “You have to live life moving forward, not back” â€" could be taken as a rueful comment on the follyof trying, after eight years, to recapture the magic of three films made in a compressed three-year span with a consistent (and wildly talented) cast. Unless, of course, you’re just trying to milk a few more dollars out of the title. There’s all the time in the world for that.