Undercover agent Cody Banks, played by Frankie Muniz, attempts to befriend popular student Natalie Connors, played by Hilary Duff, in MGM Pictures'action-adventure "Agent Cody Banks." (Gannett News Service, Diyah Pera/MGM). Agent Cody Banks Starring: Frankie Muniz, Hillary Duff, Angie Harmon, Keith David. Director: Harald Zwart. Rated PG: Profanity, gross-out humor, cartoonish violence. Running time: 96 minutes. view the trailer | official website Cody Banks is a typical teen--he loves to skateboard, hates math, and feels like a complete idiot around girls. But Cody's got a secret--he's actually part of a secret teen CIA program. Cody's living every boy's dream life--he can drive like a stuntman, has an incredible arsenal of cool gadgets, and his agency mentor, Ronica Miles, is totally hot. But Cody's training is put to the test when he's sent to pose as a prep school student and befriend fellow teen Natalie Connors in order to gain access to her father--a scientist unknowingly developing a fleet of deadly nanobots for the evil organization ERIS.

by Marshall Fine, Gannett News Service

"Agent Cody Banks" wants to be smoother than "Spy Kids," still using slapstick for its tale of under-age spies while giving it a teenage romantic-comedy spin.

But the "Spy Kids" movies of Robert Rodriguez have a rude wit that suffuses their cartoony fantasy world. "Cody Banks" tries to blend comedy, teen attitude and James Bond cool - and falls short on all counts.

Frankie Muniz ("Malcolm in the Middle") plays Cody Banks, a Seattle teen secretly trained at summer camp to be a junior CIA operative. He is called into service when the CIA discovers a reclusive scientist is about to turn over dangerous technology to an even more dangerous foreign crackpot.

It's up to Cody to get information on the scientist by wooing his daughter. One catch: Cody might be a martial-arts and weapons whiz, but he's totally tongue-tied when it comes to women.

There's humor to be found in the various set-ups that the squad of writers came up with here. And they've done an admirable job of casting, including Angie Harmon as Cody's gorgeous but no-nonsense handler and Keith David as the bombastic CIA chief. But the writing and the direction make "Cody Banks" look like something made for TV, perhaps for Nickelodeon.

Muniz is a capable young actor with strong comic instincts, but he's only as good as his material, which is mediocre in this case. The same is true of Hilary Duff, who plays his love interest. Harmon finds more laughs than you'd expect, while Ian McShane and Arnold Vosloo, as the villains find far fewer.

"Agent Cody Banks" should amuse the 10-to-12-year-old audience. Everyone else probably already has been issued their license to resist its attractions.