As a filmmaker, Robert Rodriguez has a kind of dazzling, turbo-charged vitality that is only enhanced by the flippant, let's-see-how-far-over-the-top-we-can-go nature of his work. Eight years after becoming an indelible symbol for the resourceful tactics of guerilla filmmaking with the taut, no-budget wonder El Mariachi, Rodriguez has become an eye-candy dynamo; a gleeful purveyor of pulp so jammed with spicy flavor that it seems ready to rupture on screen at any moment. With the propulsive mayhem of his neo-Spaghetti Western Desperado, Rodriguez established himself as a caffeine-saturated John Woo incarnate, filling the screen with delectable orgies of balletic gunplay and the inspired bedlam of guitar-case rocket launchers. Rodriguez's tongue-in-cheek, violence-as-cartoon mentality was pushed to an even higher level in the Tarantino-scripted vampire caper From Dusk Till Dawn, which, in its own eternally trashy way, transformed the manic carnage of B-grade horror bloodbaths into high art. Throw in the effects-laden thrills of the teen horror opus The Faculty, and Robert Rodriguez is undeniably Hollywood's resident rock 'n roll master of kinetic operas of violence.

What then are we to make of Rodriguez's whimsical Spy Kids, the kind of innocuous, McDonald's-friendly family feature that's primarily geared towards a demographic that would be lucky to sneak a glimpse of From Dusk Till Dawn on HBO before their parents caught them? A kind of kiddie James Bond dropped into a surreal Willy Wonka-style world, Spy Kids ostensibly stars Antonio Banderas and Carla Gugino as a pair of secret agents who decide to retire from the espionage game and settle into a quiet family life, but the real heroes are their plucky tykes, Carmen and Juni (Alexa Vega and Daryl Sabara), who are forced to save the day when mom and dad tumble into the clutches of evil. In one respect, Spy Kids shares a clear kinship to Rodriguez's previous films though its breezy, comic-book inventiveness-the playful "kids-save-parents" concept is every bit as paper-thin as the simplistic "he-came-to-settle-the-score-with-someone-anyone-everyone" setup that drives Desperado. And Spy Kids is nothing if not a culmination of Rodriguez's starry-eyed fascination with slick, vivacious gadgetry, moving on from the guitar-case razzle-dazzle to electrically-charged bubble gum, satellite-dish wristwatches and, best of all, a plump, banana-yellow mini-submarine that becomes the center of a high-speed water chase.

Rodriguez, however, pushes into uncharted territory through the cotton-candy dreamscape world of his impish villain Floop (a marvelous Alan Cumming), a Pee-Wee Herman clone who serves as ringmaster for a Teletubbies-styled kiddie show and dreams of-what else-world domination. Some of the elements in his towering, Gothic seaside castle reflect a vibrant visual imagination, most notably a sprawling floor that proves to be composed of giant jigsaw puzzle pieces. Others, such as the robot minions whose limbs consist of nothing but thumbs, smack of watered-down Tim Burton.

The larger problem with Spy Kids, however, has to do with Rodriguez's inherent brand of filmmaking, which proves less suited to the constructs of the family feature. It's hardly a secret that his movies-especially the ones he writes himself-offer all the complexity of a dime-store novel. The fairly primitive characters in Desperado, after all, only really exist inasmuch is necessary to allow Rodriguez to string-together and stage his elaborate action set-pieces. It hardly matters one wink, however, because the whole movie is so intoxicated by its own style that its verve and kinetic energy become utterly infectious-each gunshot is like a jolt of adrenaline. The special-effects laden spectacle of Spy Kids, on the other hand, cannot fall back on the natural buzz of stylish violence (and those who think it doesn't exist should become better acquainted with the work of Sam Peckinpah and John Woo) and appears that much more clunky as a result. Trying to strike that elusive storytelling pitch that appeals to both children and adults, Rodriguez's writing becomes more nakedly labored and problematic. The story stumbles through the usual childhood cliches (Juni is picked on at school; Carmen has a bedwetting problem) and, in the end, it screams its "family IS important" message just a little too blatantly.

But let's not kid ourselves-in an age where children are brainwashed on a regular basis by the hollow spectacle of Pokemon, a family film bursting with imagination like Spy Kids is welcome and desperately needed relief (See Spot Run? God help us all). Rodriguez's screenplay may verge dangerously close to vapidity from time to time, but its honest-to-goodness heart cannot be denied. And there's a certain pleasure to be had in watching the film's duo of precocious youngsters-Vega comes with the kind of tough-cutie charms that suggest she could develop a real edge as an actress once she hits her teen years and Sabara, while playing his "sad hangdog" card a bit too much, carries a scrappy, underdog appeal. While it's unclear whether diehard Rodriguez fans will embrace this kinder, gentler Robert (and I, for one, will stick to the frenetic pleasure of his action opuses), Spy Kids, armed with a warm vitality all its own, can at least be credited with combating the black hole of family cinema, rather than feeding it.