Alas Destination London is an effort that rapidly wears out the exceedingly slender likeability that the original had. Indeed while the first film spoofed the spy image, Destination London plays the central concept straight. There’s no parody of the spy image in seeing it played out in a high school setting, no comedy centred around the contrast between James Bond’s super-stud image and Cody’s ineptitude with girls. At most Destination London has a joke centred around Cody’s having to pose as a clarinettist while not knowing how to play the instrument. And bookended at the beginning and end is a repeat of the gag that comes about his parents remaining unaware of his mission as an agent. On the other hand, Destination London blows up the action sequences, an element that was relatively low-key in the original. But in playing the spy role straight (or at least without conscious parody), the diminutive Frankie Muniz just seems geeky and decidedly unheroic.

Moreover the action scenes are all played as comedy. And what drags Destination London down in a big way is how the slim plot is given over to noisy chaos. Director Kevin Allen plays the comedy without any sophistication – food fights, comedic stumblings around with various people turned into mind-controlled zombies, a quite overblown opening sequence where the camp is accidentally destroyed and so on. The silliness is amplified tenfold whenever the annoyingly girly-voiced Anthony Anderson appears on screen – demolishing kitchens (a scene that gets played out twice) and running about the streets on a moped. And most of the supporting characters are allowed their heads in shamelessly over-the-top performances – Anderson, James Faulkner’s villain, David Kelly as a geriatric butler, and especially Paul Kaye as an extremely weird Q character. (Although at least British singer Hannah Spearitt plays the female lead with an appealing perkiness). The villain’s world domination plan is incredibly sketchy – at no point do we learn why he is trying to control the minds of world leaders – indeed one kept wondering why, when the CIA find it so easy to infiltrate his mansion, they needed to send a kid rather than an adult spy to do the job.

Agent Cody 2 Banks: Destination London’s principal novelty is the London location – perhaps reflective of the newfound cool that England and Tony Blair has found in America after becoming its primary ally in the Iraq war. (The film’s cutest gag is a climactic scene, which has a mind-controlled Tony Blair-lookalike and the Queen boogieing along as a German-accented kid sings, with possibly subversive intent, “War! What is it good for?”). British reviewers reacted and poured scorn on the film for its cliché presentations of the country – London is only used as a picture postcard location and at no point does the film engage in any of the rich possibilities for culture clash comedy. Surprisingly though, Destination London was directed by an Englishman – sometimes actor Kevin Allen, director of Twin Town (1997) and The Big Tease (1999).

Unlike Spy Kids (2001), the Cody Banks series’ obvious source of inspiration, Destination London leaves one feeling dismal at the prospect of any further entries to the series. This is well and truly a series that has squeezed all of the exceedingly few charms out of its premise.