Spy Kids: Armageddon | 2023 | PG | – 1.4.1

Why is “Spy Kids: Armageddon” rated PG? The MPAA rating has been assigned for “sequences of action.” The Kids-In-Mind.com evaluation includes a brief kissing scene, several fight sequences involving children and adults against villains in and out of a computer game landscape with characters falling without injuries shown, a few arguments and some name-calling. Read our parents’ guide below for details on sexual content, violence & strong language.

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Professional spies (Zachary Levi and Gina Rodriguez) are kidnapped when their young children (Connor Esterson and Everly Carganilla) inadvertently help a power-hungry electronic game developer steal the computer code to the largest national defense weapon. As world populations lose access to their online lives, the two children must help the U.S. government save their parents and the world. Also with D. J. Cotrona, Billy Magnussen and Joe Schilling. Directed by Robert Rodriguez. [Running Time: 1:40]

Spy Kids: Armageddon SEX/NUDITY 1

 – A man and a woman kiss briefly once and hold hands twice.
► A woman wears tight tank tops that reveal cleavage and in one scene, part of the side of one breast is exposed.

Spy Kids: Armageddon VIOLENCE/GORE 4

 – Several scenes feature confrontations between humans and computer game villains come to life: living skeletons that change into three-eyed robots, a giant robot with a deep voice, and men dressed as ancient Aztec warriors (in grass skirts, tall feathered headdresses and war makeup), all carrying huge axes, spears and clubs. Half a dozen scenes include villains and two adults fighting with punches, kicks, swinging weapons, and throws; people and warriors are thrown into walls (no injuries are seen), and glass doors, a large flat-screen TV, and walls shatter spreading glass shards onto floors (no one is cut). Humans and villains use technology to throw stun bombs, bolts of electricity and confetti-like sparks at one another. Several villains and people fall, covered in electricity bolts or stunned by the bombs, but no one appears to be injured.
► A flashback includes a large pickup truck crashing through a warehouse door as stun bombs are thrown causing several men and women to fall unconscious; a man and a woman outside toss a device that creates a fireball that fills the screen and destroys the building (we do not know if the people inside escaped).
► A man and a woman arrest thieves, are attacked by a giant robot, and hide in a safe room, but warriors break in; the man and the woman are kidnapped by the thieves, and the robot jumps through a window (the glass shatters) and runs away. A man and a woman send their daughter and son (about ages 6 and 8) in a small combination car/dune buggy into traffic to drive to a safe house; the children enter the underground safe house by elevator and fall through a trap door onto soft foam blocks, the boy runs a gauntlet of many large fly swatters, is struck many times and falls down but is not hurt, and the girl is struck once; the children are closed into a closet and come out dressed in jumpsuits and electronic sunglasses that provide data holographic images.
► A young boy and young girl drive a small vehicle through streets, swerving around traffic while warriors with clubs and swords chase them on two large motorcycles; the villains try to attack, but the children’s vehicle runs them off the road and knocks them down. Four men and a woman break into a safe house and try to kidnap two young children who disable the people with flashing electronic rays, and three men fall through a trap door but are uninjured; one man is struck by a large fly swatter and falls, and the children run outdoors and are caught by a government official who puts them in handcuffs.
► On a TV screen we see that people around the world cannot access their technology devices unless they play a game. A man says that people cannot be made to be good unless you force them to do so. A young boy is forced to beat a game by causing a boulder to fall on a man in the game (the character is probably smashed but we don’t see this).
► A man and a woman are chained and blindfolded, sitting in a jail cell in a dungeon; they exit the door, which is unlocked, and confront a man standing in a brick room where the bricks move around the wall and the three people fight two against one with swords; one man falls as we hear swords clanking, the woman and the second man continue fighting until she loses her sword, and the first man and woman are locked into the cell again.
► A young boy and young girl witness a break-in at a government HQ where warriors and people get into a brawl (no one is shown to be hurt); the children steal a boat-plane and chase villains in two other boats to a building where they crash through a door that is a hologram and find their parents in a jail cell while warriors chase them and break down walls and pillars (which are all holograms); the children swing away on a cable safely, they release their parents and fall down a shaft safely into a computer room. A young boy accidentally activates a computer program that allows a game developer to take over all tech devices in the world; the developer confronts the boy, a young girl and their parents, telling them that they are the cause of his father dying in prison, and then he flies away through the roof in an elevator car.
► Two adults and two children sit in virtual reality pods and become warriors in a video game where they run across platforms and jump over gaps, until they confront and destroy other warriors (game characters that fall) with stunning rays and electric bolts as lava “waterfalls” flow in the dark background; the adults and the young girl fight warriors by giving them compliments to stop their attack while the boy and a man fight with sharpened long-staffs that clank together until the boy’s father throws a giant hammer at the other man, but the boy jumps in the way and is struck and falls (the boy is OK), and the man he was fighting falls off a cliff but the father pulls him back to safety. A man is arrested and sentenced to stay in a computer game until he beats it.
► A man and a woman argue loudly several times. A young boy and a young girl argue several times and the boy says that honesty only gets you into trouble and lying and fighting is the only way to solve situations.

Spy Kids: Armageddon LANGUAGE 1

 – Name-calling (crazy, craziest, ruthless, scheming, jerk, impulsive, scoundrel), exclamations (heck, Heck Knight, wow, whoa, tough tacos). | profanity glossary |

Spy Kids: Armageddon SUBSTANCE USE

 – A wife rubs an invisible drug on her lips so her husband will fall unconscious after he kisses her.

Spy Kids: Armageddon DISCUSSION TOPICS

 – Video games, virtual reality, holograms, technology and parental controls, computer-based monsters, family, loss, regret, revenge, cheating, lying, honesty, understanding, making amends.

Spy Kids: Armageddon MESSAGE

 – We do not have to use lies and force in order to change the world for the better.