Owen Wilson joined the super hero community as The Guard, the world’s protector and hero, who after discovering a UFO crashed in the woods had the existing alien technology present him with a vision.

Unfortunately, the demands of the super hero life led to a split between Jack (Owen Wilson) and his wife Lily (Jesse Mueller) and Jack spent less and less time with his son Charlie (Walker Scobell).

Trying to make up for lost time, Jack had Charlie over for a weekend at his home, but his duties as The Guard pulled him away again. Charlie tricked his dad and stayed at the house, calling his friend Berger (Keith L. Williams) to come over. He brought with him Lizzie (Abby James Witherspoon) and Maya (Momona Tamada) for a rave.

The four kids stumble across a mysterious elevator which took them down into an underground cavern where they found all kinds of amazing gadgets and power sources.

I liked Walker Scobell quite a bit. He clearly built upon his work earlier this years in The Adam Project with Ryan Reynolds to pick up this role. He is a charming young man and is one of the strongest parts of the film. Owen Wilson is always great no matter what role he is given and he has some wonderful scenes with Scobell that help to define both characters.

Secret Headquarters (which is a terrible title for this) has that Spy Kids/Shark Boy vibe to it. It is designed for family fun and a very light hearted kids adventure. While this is not a great movie by any stretch, it had some moments that I thought were solid and there were bits that were well done. I expected this to be worse than I found it to be.

Of course, Secret Headquarters goes over the top and is filled with too much senseless materials. It feels about 15-20 minutes too long. This movie should have been a tight 90 minutes top, and you can feel the excess in the run time.

Michael Peña played the main villain, Ansel Argon, who was desperately trying to find the power source of the Guard. This character was too inconsistent, trying to be sinister, but having too many examples of his silliness. All of the villains here were one note.

Secret Headquarters can be a fun time for families, but it goes no further than that.

2.75 stars