Metacritic reviews

Robert Rodriguez delivers a family-friendly film that feels like his most personal project yet. We Can Be Heroes is a cheerful and colorful take on the superhero genre with a powerful message about empowering younger generations to take the reins and do better than their parents.

Though aimed at a young audience, this is one of those superhero adventures that will keep the adults entertained as well.

With enough enjoyable originality to differentiate it from the numerous takes on the super men and wonder women that so heavily populate film and TV these days, We Can Be Heroes flies Rodriguez back to one of his main areas of interest.

Much like Rodriguez's Spy Kids films, We Can Be Heroes proves silly, light-hearted fun for its target audience, blissfully free of ponderousness and enlivened by antic humor.

A zany, imaginative, and extremely kid-oriented “Avengers” riff that combines major stars with Snapchat-level special effects in order to lend a live-action Saturday morning cartoon vibe to a story about seizing your own destiny, “We Can Be Heroes” is the ultimate Troublemaker movie.

Rodriguez’s kid movies are always sweet-natured, and do an admirable job of speaking directly to their target audience. But while he can generate countless environments from his Austin studio, the camerawork on these projects, constrained and uninspired, hints at their single-room origins.

This is pretty ho-hum stuff, but it could keep very young kids quiet over a lockdown Christmas.

Rodriguez has fun coming up with some new-ish powers and there are knowing send-ups of superhero lore, but the takeaway is thin and forgettable.

As a bouncy childcare aid, it doesn’t exactly fail, but you might be better off asking an eight-year-old about that. It’s witless fare if you want the whole family entertained.

Robert Rodriguez’s film, like The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D, fundamentally lacks a sense of wonder.