We live in an age of superhero films run amok. Some are bad; many are good. A few are outstanding. A lot of them are blockbusters. Here’s one this isn’t. Not even a little. Paramount and Jerry Bruckheimer production companies looked around at Joker and Batman and Thor and Spider-Man and concluded, “You know what we need to do here? Make another Spy Kids.”
SMH.
You know what? If you’re not going to take this seriously, don’t bother.
Jack (Owen Wilson) is a dad enjoying the wonders of the cheap family vacation when random space stuff goes down not far away. Abandoning wife and child, Jack takes the family Mystery Machine towards danger and almost flattens a dazed paratrooping Captain Irons (Jesse Williams). I suppose that’s gonna happen if you drive towards night wreckage enough times.
The two men find the source almost immediately: a small spaceship bearing a glowing ball ready to bestow superpowers “duck, duck, goose” style. It passes on the Cap’n and selects Owen Wilson … which is kind of a bummer dude, cuz on this planet, if you select Owen Wilson, it almost certainly means you’ve also selected Vince Vaughn and Ben Stiller. Despite the Cap’n’s objections, Jack takes his new ball and goes home (and thus becomes The Guard, saving the Earth from natural disaster, unrelenting evil and nose tackles alike).
Fast forward to perhaps my least favorite trope: The child who’s father doesn’t play with him enough and isn’t afraid or cowed or embarrassed to open up about it. I have known plenty of children of absentee parents and not one acts like they’re ready for the therapist’s couch, but that doesn’t stop the massive guilt trip in screen form that happens every,single.time a parent shows more devotion to a job than a child.
Suffice to say, Secret Headquarters (a terrible, terrible title. Were “Green Kryptonite”, ”Super Cape”, and ”Bat Phone” already taken?) forgets Jack is a character. The story is now about his son, Charlie (Walker Scobell). The movie is never about his mom (Jesse Mueller), but why would it be? I mean it’s not like she ever discovered the Secret Headquarters, right?
Left alone with his best friend (Keith L. Williams) at Dad’s cabin retreat, Charlie is talked into inviting two girls over; soon, all four teens discover the password to the underground lair written on a freaking photograph. Then all the kids discover what fun it is to abuse minor super powers tied to the place. “The Guard,” defender of Earth, somehow never envisioned 
anyone finding his fortress of mancavitude.
And then Michael Peña shows up to be a super rich, world-dominating bad guy. Except that he’s Michael Peña, so it’s hard to take him seriously as a source of evil. You know what? I could buy Michael Peña as a source of cupcakes. All powerful techno-genius evil? Not so much, but I’d buy Michael Peña as a source of quality baked goods.
You know what’s funny? Michael Peña and Owen Wilson already have roles in the Marvel Universe, and they have been expertly chosen. Michael Peña isn’t some sort of evil Bill Gates-ian megalomaniac; he’s a buddy of Ant-Man. He provides comic relief. And Owen Wilson … superhero? HA! Marvel made him a middle manager undergoing a life crisis. That’s Owen Wilson. Marvel nailed it.
The casting is only a small part of this mess. The acting is bad; the plot is bad; the writing is bad. I suppose I enjoyed the film’s fun use of portals, but enough to make an unbelievable superhero film believable? Not even a little bit. I don’t know what Owen Wilson is doing with his career right now, but if his agent can’t find better scripts, it might be time to take smaller roles.
Heroes need time for their talents to grow
To be more than the gifts they bestow
I’d rather not nettle
But I don’t want to settle
For the power to get Vince Vaughn to show
Rated PG, 104 Minutes
Director: Henry Joost, Ariel Schulman
Writer: Josh Koenigsberg, Henry Joost
Genre: Spy Kids ripoff
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: The real life parents of Walker Scobell … maybe
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Anybody who has seen a genuine superhero film
