Agent Cody Banks

A high-school kid (Frankie Muniz) is secretly a CIA agent assigned to get close to the teenage daughter (Hilary Duff) of a reclusive scientist (Martin Donovan) who may be up to no good. “A teenage James Bond,” somebody probably said at some story conference, and after the chaotic efforts of five writers, 16 producers and director Harald Zwart, the result is this harmless time killer. There’s nothing wrong with it, but it’s unimaginative and passionless—the competent but halfhearted work of contractors who punched in in the morning, did their jobs and punched out at night, never giving the project a second’s thought after leaving the studio. Muniz (of TV’s Malcolm in the Middle) carries it all with surprising aplomb; he may prove to be a more natural actor as an adult than he was as a child.