I am a huge fan of Agent Cody Banks and it’s worthy sequel, Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London. I remember the fervor when the first movie... excuse me, FILM, first came to the cinemas. In 2003, when I first saw the poster for ACB, with Frankie Muniz leaning against the edge (literally!) while his handler, Ronica (that lady from Law & Order) and girlfriend Natalie (Lizzie McGuire) watched from behind. He had a look that said, “Dudes, I got this. I am the coolest person who has ever graduated from Summer CIA camp and gotten into CIA, even in high school.” By that point, I was hooked. I didn’t even read the tagline until much later, which said "Save the world. Get the Girl. Pass math." Oh, Cody Banks, I'd never doubt you for a second!
I don’t have to tell you guys this, but the basic plot of ACB is that the cool, handsome Cody Banks becomes a junior agent at the CIA and has to find out why a scientist is associated with a bad-guy organization headed by the main guy from Deadwood and The Mummy (who, for the last time, is NOT BILLY ZANE). The regular CIA can’t get to these bad guys because the bad guys know all the CIA officers in the world. Naturally, to find out, he joins the scientist’s daughter’s high school to get at him. At the beginning of the movie, Cody Banks doesn’t know anything, but his Law & Order lady totally hooks him up with being good with girls and karate, etc. At the end of the movie, he has to save the girl from a mountain factory, so he uses a rocket powered snowboard and a SoloTrek XFV. Then there’s a fight involving nanobots and ice cubes, and at the end, Cody Banks wins. Needless to say, it’s the greatest movie ever written.
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| Only one of these people is Billy Zane. Hint: it's the guy on the right. |
And oh, what a sequel it was. I won’t explain it because I can’t possibly do it justice, but this line, courtesy of Wikipedia, says it all: “Derek attacks Cody, ready to drop him over the balcony, but Emily expertly kicks, punches, and overcomes the dentist controlling Derek with the password ‘mind control’”. Even better than the original!
The Philistine public didn’t agree and it made only $28 million at the box office. Then, tragedy. Frankie Muniz himself was shamed into saying that he would never be Cody Banks again. And all the Banksies wailed. We just couldn’t believe that they wouldn’t be completing the trilogy. The next movie would have been our Return at the Jedi or Alien3. Instead, I was unable to even speak for three days. I couldn’t eat or sleep or use the bathroom or check Facebook. And the world spun on.
Then, two weeks ago, out of the blue, Jeffrey Jurgenson, the godfather of the Cody Banks franchise, reached out to me. He’d read The Cody Banks Corner and was impressed with my short story, “Cody Banks and Clint Handsome: Kwanzaa Warriors”. He was asking me what I thought of a new sequel to the Agent Cody Banks franchise. Well, Mr. Jurgenson, here’s what I think:
We open in Moscow. A CIA agent is running from the Russian mob carrying a manila envelope. We don’t know what’s in the manila envelope, but it must be important because the russian mob does not fuck around. The mobsters finally catch up to the agent and kill him and take the envelope, which contains a deadly toxin called Hephaestus. It turns out that the mobsters were working for international terrorist Edward Falstaff (Michael Caine), who wants to use it against the Vice President of the United States, Rick Santos (Pitbull) when he visits his hometown of Miami. The CIA finds out this plan and sends an about-to-retire Cody Banks (Channing Tatum) to J. Edgar Hoover Academy to befriend the VP’s daughter, Dana (Rihanna) and protect the family against Falstaff. Agent Cody Banks refuses to go without his trusty partner, handler, and lifelong bro, Clint Handsome (Taye Diggs).
Cody befriends Dana by being her lab partner in science class, and she invites Cody and Clint to her parents’ house for her 18th birthday. Emily’s ex boyfriend, Spencer (Tobey Maguire) becomes jealous and joins Falstaff, informing Falstaff of Cody and Clint’s involvement. Falstaff kidnaps Dana so that Cody and Clint look for her, leaving the vice president vulnerable. Cody wants to pursue Falstaff and get Dana back, but Clint refuses and tells Cody that the main mission is to protect the vice president. They fight, and Cody takes off.
Falstaff plans to release Hephaestus during a vice president fund-raiser at a Miami Marlins game, which would kill most of the Miami elite. Meanwhile, Cody tracks down Dana at a dock and kicks/punches the henchmen guarding her. It turns out she knows karate too! They beat up all the bad guys guarding her and the main bad guy in the room tells them about Falstaff’s plans. They take a rocket-powered airboat to the Miami Sheraton, where Falstaff and Cody fight on the rafters for some reason. Falstaff falls off the rafters and dies even though Cody tries to save him. Cody and Dana make out, then Clint and Cody high five. The movie ends with Dokken’s "Into the Fire."
Oh, the title of this movie? Agent Cody Banks 3: Miami Heat
And to all the Banksies out there, let us remember this exchange from ACB1:
NATALIE: You know, Cody you make a really bad first impression and a terrible second impression but the third time was really good
CODY: You gotta see my fourth
