Every once in a while, a children's film comes along that is entertaining for both kids and their parents.  Catch That Kid will never be mentioned in the same breath as any of those movies.  Adults whose knuckles don't scrape the ground will be bored to tears and actually begin to daydream about hearing another robotic, emotionless speech from John Kerry (lest he sound the slightest bit enthusiastic, like that guy from Vermont).  Kids, on the other hand, will learn important messages, like that it's okay to steal if you really need the money, or that it's fine to lead the cops on a dangerous high-speed chase if you have a really noble reason to do so.  Best of all, pre-pubescent girls will be taught how to use their budding sexuality in order to con boys into doing stupid and illegal things.  This movie has it all, including a hysterical gag about child abuse.

I wouldn't have had a problem (other than still hating it) with Kid had it been the same movie but with an R rating, or even if it were given a PG-13 and showed some kind of repercussions for the criminal activities committed by its three main characters.  Kid is rated PG, which is downright appalling when you consider the amount of bathroom humor and light petting the film contains (especially when compared to PG-13 offerings Whale Rider and Big Fish).  But what the hell do I know?  At my advance screening of Kid, the same parents who called the FCC to complain about the Super Bowl halftime show applauded, right along with their stupid little kids, at the end of this crapfest, which was far more reprehensible than seeing a split-second distant shot of a pop star's boob.  Congratulations!  You've just prepared the next generation for a lifetime of mindless, unimaginative action movies.

Kid stars Panic Room's Kristen Stewart as Maddy, a girl who enjoys climbing stuff like some kind of mentally unchallenged Arnie Grape.  Maddy's mom (Jennifer Beals) is a freelance security expert who has just installed a new, state-of-the-art vault at a local bank.  Her dad (Sam Robards) once scaled Mt. Everest, but now he runs a go-kart track.  When an old climbing injury suddenly turns ol' Dad into quadraplegic, Maddy does what any kid would do:  Get two dumb boys (Corbin Bleu and Max Thieriot) to think she'll spread her 12-year-old legs if they help steal the $250,000 needed for Dad's surgery from Mom's bank.

The first half of Kid sets up the story, while the second 45 minutes concentrates on the heist itself.  This bank, by the way, is exactly kind of savings institution that makes you really want to squirrel away your nest egg.  It's run by a heartless miser (Michael Des Barres), protected by two retarded security guards (James Le Gros and Stark Sands), and easily penetrable by three kids.  The safe, which looks like the set of Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, is suspended 100 feet above the floor.  Thank god our Maddy loves to climb stuff.

Kid is, surprisingly, a remake of a rather racy Danish film called Klatretøsen, which was released in 2002 (lest you think it wasn't another dumb Agent Cody Banks-type knockoff of Spy Kids).  That film was littered with generous doses of the kid-friendly F-word, which is about the only non-offensive element left out by director Bart Freundlich, hetero life-partner of Julianne Moore as well as the director of the mediocre The Myth of Fingerprints and the horrendously unwatchable World Traveler, and the award-winning screenwriters of the award-winning 2 Fast 2 Furious (Michael Brandt and Derek Haas).  They do have the audacity to turn Kid into a weepy love-in after it becomes obvious that none of the three little criminals will be even slightly punished.  And for that, they should all be punished themselves.

1:32 -

for some language, thematic elements and rude humor