Frankie Muniz, the likable star of TV's darkly comic Malcolm in the Middle, is back as a CIA junior operative, a not-so-suave James Bond-in-training. This time his mission takes him overseas, where he teams with Derek (Anthony Anderson), an agent whose missteps landed him in exile in London.

Banks is sent to there to retrieve a stolen mind-control device that Diaz (Keith Allen), the former CIA training camp director, has taken and is determined to use to manipulate world leaders. Banks must pose as a virtuoso musician at a posh academy run by a dedicated music lover (Anna Chancellor) whose husband is one of the villains behind the mind control scheme. Still following this? Cody can't blow his cover (though he has no musical ability), and he must infiltrate the operation, spy on his targets and dismantle the device.


Where the first Cody Banks focused on laughs and feats of derring-do, this installment gets mired in gadgetry and high-tech devices. It's as if the filmmakers take the junior Bond label too seriously.

What was refreshing good fun the first time around feels derivative in this follow-up. There are food fights, episodes involving potty humor and, perhaps most disappointingly, a host of jokes that fall flat. Diaz intones this Apocalypse Now homage: "I just love the smell of summer camp in the evening." Could there be a more tired line to riff off? Even Muniz doesn't seem to be having much fun.

The two Banks share an unattractive quality: They traffic in ethnic stereotypes, embodied in the first by an Asian driving instructor. Here an Indian girl is lampooned, and most of the Brits are portrayed as pompous twits or daft fools.

Overall, Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London is simply not worth the trip.