''Agent Cody Banks'' is a 2003 American

spy Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information (intelligence) from non-disclosed sources or divulging of the same without the permission of the holder of the information for a tangib ...

action comedy film Action comedy is a genre that combines aspects of action and comedy. The genre is most prevalent in film with action comedy films, though several TV series fit this genre. Film The action comedy film is a film genre that combines aspects of acti ...

directed by

Harald Zwart Harald Zwart (born 1 July 1965) is a Dutch- Norwegian film director. Life and career Although born in the Netherlands, Zwart was raised in Fredrikstad, Norway. By age eight, he had started making short films. He attended the Dutch Film Academy ...

. The film follows the adventures of the 15-year-old title character, played by

Frankie Muniz Francisco Muniz IV (; born December 5, 1985) is an American actor. He is best known for playing the title character in the Fox sitcom ''Malcolm in the Middle'' (2000–2006), which earned him an Emmy Award nomination and two Golden Globe Award ...

, who has to finish his chores, avoid getting grounded, and save the world by going

undercover To go "undercover" (that is, to go on an undercover operation) is to avoid detection by the object of one's observation, and especially to disguise one's own identity (or use an assumed identity) for the purposes of gaining the trust of an ind ...

for the

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

as a

James Bond The ''James Bond'' series focuses on a fictional British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short-story collections. Since Fleming's death in 1964, eight other authors have ...

–type superspy.

Hilary Duff Hilary Erhard Duff (born September 28, 1987) is an American actress and singer. She is the recipient of various accolades, including seven Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards, four Teen Choice Awards and two Young Artist Awards. She began her acti ...

Angie Harmon Angela Michelle Harmon (born August 10, 1972) is an American actress and model. She won ''Seventeens modeling contest in 1987 at age 15, signed with IMG Models, and appeared on covers for magazines such as ''Cosmopolitan'' and ''Esquire''. ...

Keith David Keith David Williams (born June 4, 1956) is an American actor. He is known for his signature deep voice and commanding screen presence in over 300 roles across film, stage, television, and interactive media. He has starred in such films as '' T ...

Cynthia Stevenson Cynthia Stevenson (born August 2, 1962) is an American actress. She first played a leading role in the syndicated parody comedy series ''My Talk Show'' (1990–91), before starring in a number of sitcoms, including '' Bob'' (CBS, 1992–93), '' ...

Daniel Roebuck Daniel James Roebuck (born March 4, 1963) is an American actor and writer. His best known roles include Deputy Marshal Robert Biggs in ''The Fugitive'' and its spinoff film ''U.S. Marshals'', Jay Leno in ''The Late Shift'', and Dr. Leslie Arz ...

Darrell Hammond Darrell Clayton Hammond (born October 8, 1955) is an American actor, stand-up comedian and impressionist. He was a regular cast member on ''Saturday Night Live'' from 1995 to 2009, and has been its announcer since 2014. Upon his departure, Hammo ...

Ian McShane Ian David McShane (born 29 September 1942) is an English actor, producer and director. He is known for his television performances, particularly as the title role in the BBC series ''Lovejoy'' (1986–1994), Al Swearengen in '' Deadwood'' (20 ...

, and

Arnold Vosloo Arnold Vosloo (born 16 June 1962) is a South African-American actor. He is famous for roles such as Imhotep in '' The Mummy'' and ''The Mummy Returns'', Colonel Coetzee in ''Blood Diamond'', Pik van Cleef in ''Hard Target'', Dr. Peyton Westlak ...

co-star. The movie was filmed in

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

and was released in the United States on March 14, 2003. This film was the first major motion picture project for Duff apart from the film spinoff of her ''

Lizzie McGuire ''Lizzie McGuire'' is an American comedy television series created by Terri Minsky that premiered on Disney Channel on January 12, 2001. The series stars Hilary Duff as the titular character, who navigates the personal and social issues of her t ...

'' TV series, as well as for Harmon, who had just come off a three-year stint as Assistant D.A.

Abbie Carmichael Abigail M. Carmichael is a fictional character on the TV drama '' Law & Order'' created by René Balcer and portrayed by model/actress Angie Harmon. The character was regularly featured from 1998 to 2001. She appeared in 78 episodes (72 episodes ...

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

's '' Law & Order''. A

sequel A sequel is a work of literature, film, theatre, television, music or video game that continues the story of, or expands upon, some earlier work. In the common context of a narrative work of fiction, a sequel portrays events set in the same ...

was released the following year. The film's executive producers include Madonna (whose then-production company Maverick Films acquired the script) and Jason Alexander (he was originally attached to direct before being replaced by

Vic Armstrong Victor Monroe Armstrong (born 5 October 1946) is a British film director, stunt coordinator, second unit director, and stunt double—the world's most prolific, according to the '' Guinness Book of Records''. Career The Armstrong doubled for ...

, who was ultimately replaced by Zwart).

Plot

Cody Banks, a 15-year-old bullied high school junior in Seattle, applies for a junior field ops position at the

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

Special Activities Division The Special Activities Center (SAC) is a division of the United States Central Intelligence Agency responsible for covert and paramilitary operations. The unit was named Special Activities Division (SAD) prior to 2015. Within SAC there are two ...

after completing a training

summer camp A summer camp or sleepaway camp is a supervised program for children conducted during the summer months in some countries. Children and adolescents who attend summer camp are known as ''campers''. Summer school is usually a part of the academ ...

. Answering to his handler Agent Ronica Miles, Cody is called upon a mission to find information about a scientist named Dr. Albert Connors. Connors is employed by a

SPECTRE Spectre, specter or the spectre may refer to: Religion and spirituality * Vision (spirituality) * Apparitional experience * Ghost Arts and entertainment Film and television * ''Spectre'' (1977 film), a made-for-television film produced and writ ...

-type organization named ERIS, led by Dr. Brinkman and his henchman François Molay. As every

CIA officer The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

is known to Brinkman's organization, the CIA uses the unknown Banks, who is placed into the prep school of Dr. Connors' daughter Natalie, the William Donovan Preparatory Academy. Cody soon finds he has no social skill with girls and has no time to do this while balancing his chores and homework. The CIA decides to help by doing his chores and homework, trying to build his status, and going into the school to set him up with Natalie. The CIA also assemble a varying team of "experts" to train Cody into how to talk to girls, and issue him with a variety of gadgets with various functions. Eventually, Cody befriends and falls in love with Natalie after rescuing her from falling off a ladder while putting up a banner, and he is invited to her 16th birthday party, where he goes undercover to her father's lab. Cody finds that Dr. Brinkman is planning to use

nanobots Nanoid robotics, or for short, nanorobotics or nanobotics, is an emerging technology field creating machines or robots whose components are at or near the scale of a nanometer (10−9 meters). More specifically, nanorobotics (as opposed to mi ...

— which can destroy any carbon or silicon-based substance — to destroy the world's defense systems so he can threaten anyone who opposes him. Since the nanobots are inactive in the cold, he plans to use ice cubes to distribute them. After Connors, Dr. Brinkman, and François leave the lab, Cody tries to take one of the ice cubes, only for it to melt his shoe when in his possession. Shortly after this, Cody fights male bullies, at the party. The fight makes the school newspaper, and the CIA suspends Cody from the mission. Meanwhile, with Connors refusing to aid him in his plans, Dr. Brinkman sends François and some men to catch Natalie and bring her into his base in the Cascade Mountains. Meanwhile, disobeying orders to leave her out of it, Cody and Natalie eat ice cream at a restaurant. Cody attempts to explain things to Natalie but François and a group of henchmen come over to their table, beat Cody up, and take Natalie. Cody is fully removed from the mission and is grounded for being missing for hours from his house. Cody gets his brother Alex to make sure his parents do not find out that he has disappeared by giving him the $5,000 the CIA gave him. Knowing Natalie's location via a tracking device in a necklace he gave her as a birthday present, Cody breaks into the CIA weapons hold and steals a rocket powered snowboard and other devices to rescue Natalie. Cody gets a ride to the top of the mountain and snowboards to the factory where Natalie is held. However, he gets caught in a grove of trees as Ronica finds him using a

SoloTrek XFV The SoloTrek XFV (Exo-skeletal Flying Vehicle) was a single-person VTOL aircraft. It was first flown in December 2001 by Millennium Jet Inc, a private company run by Michael Moshier. Millennium Jet subsequently changed its name to Trek Aerospac ...

. After convincing her that they need to rescue Natalie, the pair infiltrate the laboratory and Cody rescues Natalie, also explaining the truth about why he went out with her. However, the trio are captured by Brinkman's men, although Cody quickly escapes. Natalie is held hostage by Dr. Brinkman, who puts an ice cube with a nanobot inside on her forehead to make her father program the system. Cody sets off a series of explosive charges he and Ronica planted throughout the base, and in the ensuing battle, Ronica fights off several of Dr. Brinkman's men, and Natalie kills Dr. Brinkman by placing the ice cube with the nanobots into his mouth, causing it to melt, and the nanobots to devour him from the inside out. Cody later defeats François and sends him to the CIA using the SoloTrek XFV, before fleeing the exploding facility in a helicopter with Ronica, Natalie and Dr. Connors. The CIA welcomes Cody back to the team and congratulates him for completing the mission, and Cody decides to have Natalie earn her drivers license as a reward in which she succeeds in. Then they stop by at a beach cutting Ronica off when she calls. They then kiss starting a relationship.

Cast

as Agent Cody Banks, a 15-year-old teenager who applies for the junior ops division *

as Natalie Connors, Cody’s girlfriend, a 16-year-old teenager *

as Veronica "Ronica" Miles, Cody’s supervisor *

as CIA Director *

as Dr. Brinkman, leader of the ERIS who wants to take over the world *

as François Molay, Dr. Brinkman's right hand man. *

Martin Donovan Martin Donovan (born Martin Paul Smith; August 19, 1957) is an American actor. He has had a long collaboration with director Hal Hartley, appearing in many of his films, such as ''Trust'' (1990), '' Surviving Desire'' (1991), '' Simple Men'' (199 ...

as Dr. Albert Connors, Natalie's father *

as Mr. Banks, Cody's father *

as Mrs. Banks, Cody's mother * Connor Widdows as Alex Banks, Cody's 10-year-old younger brother *

as Earl *

Peter New Peter New is a Canadian actor and screenwriter, best known for his roles as Big McIntosh in '' My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic'' and Sunil Nevla in '' Littlest Pet Shop''. In 2007, New's script "The Bar" won the first annual Hot Shot Shorts ...

as Rosychuk *

Noel Fisher Noel Roeim Fisher (born March 13, 1984) is a Canadian actor. He is known for his portrayal of Mickey Milkovich on the Showtime series '' Shameless'', as well as his portrayal of Cael Malloy on the FX series '' The Riches''. He played Ellison " ...

as Fenster *

Jessica Harmon Jessica Harmon (born December 27, 1985) is a Canadian actress and director. She portrayed Esrin in the Syfy science fiction web series '' Battlestar Galactica: The Face of the Enemy'' (2008–2009), FBI Agent Dale Bozzio in the CW supernatural ...

as Natalie's friend

Production

For his participation in the film, Frankie Muniz was paid $2 million, the highest paid to a child actor at that point since

Macaulay Culkin Macaulay Macaulay Culkin Culkin (born Macaulay Carson Culkin; ) is an American actor. Often regarded as one of the most successful child actors of the 1990s, he was placed 2nd on VH1's list of the "100 Greatest Kid-Stars". Culkin rose to prom ...

. ''Agent Cody Banks'' was developed as part of a broader strategy by MGM to make less-expensive films that can appeal to younger and niche audiences. Both Muniz and Angie Harmon did most of their own stunts for the film. The film used Media.net’s Edit System Dailies to transfer pre-digitized Avid system files from the post production facility Rainmaker in Vancouver directly to the pic’s editing rooms in Los Angeles without having to wait for tapes to be delivered, allowing producers and executives to receive their viewing copies half a day sooner than through the traditional method.

Reception

The film received generally mixed reviews. On review aggregator

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film holds a 38% "Rotten" approval rating with an average rating of 5.2/10, based on 104 reviews. The critics consensus states, "Should satisfy young teens, but offers nothing new for those who are familiar with the formula." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, the film has a score of 41 out of 100 based on reviews from 24 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A-" on an A+ to F scale. ''Agent Cody Banks'' opened at #2 with $14,064,317 behind '' Bringing Down the House''s second weekend. By the time the film closed on July 31, 2003, the film had earned $47,938,330 domestically and an additional $10,857,484 internationally, adding up to a total $58,795,814.

Controversy

When the film was released on home video, MGM included an apologetic paragraph in response to a throwaway line involving "Special ed". The furor erupted over an almost throwaway line in the film, at the end of the testy first meeting between the film’s protagonist, played by Frankie Muniz, and his love interest, played by Hilary Duff. After Muniz’s character stumbles through several inane questions, Duff’s character barks, “Are you in special ed?” and stomps off.

Broadcast

In India and

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

, the film was premiered on Jetix. In Italy, it was aired on

Italia 1 Italia 1 (Italian pronunciation ) is an Italian free-to-air television channel on the Mediaset network, owned by MFE - MediaForEurope. It is oriented at both young and adult people. Italia 1 was launched on 3 January 1982 and, originally, was o ...

Sky Cinema Sky Cinema is a British subscription film service owned by Sky Group (a division of Comcast). In the United Kingdom, Sky Cinema channels currently broadcast on the Sky satellite and Virgin Media cable platforms, and in addition Sky Cinema o ...

then on K2, Frisbee, and

Paramount Channel Paramount Network is a brand of several television channels operated by Paramount International Networks that showcase the Paramount Pictures film catalogue, and selected TV series from Paramount Global's television productions. The channel was ...

. In Southeast Asia, the film is aired on

Fox Family Movies Fox Family Movies was a Southeast Asian pay television channel owned by Fox Networks Group Asia Pacific, a subsidiary of Disney International Operations. The channel was initially available in Singapore via StarHub TV and Indonesia via Indov ...

, along with ''Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London''.

Sequel

Muniz reprised his title role in the sequel, ''Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London'', was released on March 12, 2004. Duff and Angie Harmon were replaced by

Anthony Anderson Anthony Anderson (born August 15, 1970) is an American actor, comedian and game show host. He is best known for his leading roles in drama series such as Marlin Boulet on '' K-Ville'', and as NYPD Detective Kevin Bernard on the NBC crime drama ...

and

Hannah Spearritt Hannah Louise Spearritt (born 1 April 1981)Gregory, Andy (2002) ''International Who's Who in Popular Music 2002'', Europa, , p. 478 is an English actress and singer. She is an original member of the pop group S Club 7. Spearritt is also known fo ...

References

External links

* * * {{Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski 2003 films 2003 action comedy films 2003 romantic comedy films 2000s adventure comedy films 2000s English-language films 2000s spy comedy films 2000s teen comedy films 2000s teen romance films 20th Century Fox films American action comedy films American adventure comedy films American romantic comedy films American spy comedy films American teen comedy films American teen romance films Films about the Central Intelligence Agency Films directed by Harald Zwart Films scored by John Powell Films set in Russia Films set in Seattle Films set in Washington (state) Films with screenplays by Ashley Edward Miller and Zack Stentz Films with screenplays by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films Teen action films Teen adventure films 2000s American films