We find only disjointed clamor and confusion amid a babble of noise and flashing lights. The movie seemed to me little more than a clever afternoon special.
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If we look at the four family adventure films director Robert Rodriguez has given us over the past few years, we see a steady downward spiral from the genuinely fun and funny "Spy Kids" (2001); to the only slightly less-inventive "Spy Kids 2" (2002); to the cold, unfeeling "Spy Kids 3-D" (2003); and now to the uninspired and insipid "Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D" (2005). What started in a blaze of welcome entertainment for children and adults has exhausted itself through self-implosion. Too much of the same; too little of the same; makes no difference. "Sharkboy and Lavagirl" looks like the same tired old.
As a matter of background before we begin, Rodrigues explains on the audio commentary that the story idea for the movie was originally presented to him by his son, Racer Max Rodriguez, who was six-and-a-half years old at the time. While I certainly don't wish to cast aspersions on six-year-olds anywhere, the fact that the script was developed from a child's creative mind may help to explain why adults might not take such a fancy to it as readily as kids would. Rodriguez seems to have made the film for no other reason than his son suggested it. "What do you want for Christmas, son? Your own movie? Sure thing." I dunno. Sometimes, just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do something. I would have recommended the word "no."
The "3-D" business of the title, as you may have guessed, means that Rodríguez again shot his movie in three-dimension, just as he did "Spy Kids 3-D." You may have also guessed that the results are just as annoying as before. More on this in the "Video" section below. For now, let's concentrate on the movie.
The story is supposedly a part of a child's dream, a dream he is able to make come alive. As such, we get a fragmented narrative, a surreal plot, largely fantastic characters, and out-of-this-world scenery. Unfortunately, these elements don't add up to much in the way of a coherent movie, which I'm sure the director would defend by saying that that's the point.
A quote from Lavagirl prefaces the film: "Everything that is or was, began with a dream." I'm not sure what the line means, but it sets the tone for the dreamlike quality of the fabrication that follows. The action begins with a story that the main character, a fourth-grader named Max (Cayden Boyd), tells his elementary-school class about what he did the previous summer. He explains how he met Sharkboy (Taylor Lautner) and Lavagirl (Taylor Dooley). Sharkboy, he says, became separated from his dad, a marine biologist, and was raised by sharks. The sharks trained him to survive, and "eventually he grew gills and sharp talons for claws," his teeth sharpened to points, and he grew fins. Max brought Sharkboy home with him, and then out of nowhere, Lavagirl appeared. Lavagirl is Sharkboy's friend, and she is too hot to touch anything; she can shoot lava out of her hands, and her hair and body are continually smoldering. She wanted Sharkboy to go back with her to her native planet, Drool, because a great crisis was developing, and they invited Max to come along with them, too. But Max could not go; he had school the next day.
That's where Max's story to the class ends, and where his classmates make fun of him for his overactive imagination. One boy is especially obnoxious, a bully named Linus (Jacob Davich), who calls Max names and eventually steals his notebook. The children's' teacher, Mr. Electricidad (George Lopez), tries to make peace between the boys, unsuccessfully.
Max is not having a good day. Nor a good life. Nobody believes his dreams. His teacher and his friends think he's weird. And to top it off, his parents (David Arquette and Kristin Davis) are not getting along and are thinking about divorce.
After this long buildup, the story actually begins. Whew! About time. During a huge storm at school, Sharkboy and Lavagirl show up in front of everybody to take Max off with them to Drool. They say that only he can save their planet from dying of complete darkness because, well, because he made them up, and only he knows their secrets. It seems that the dreams on Drool are going bad, and they need Max to set them right.
George Lopez shows up once again, this time on Drool in the form of Mr. Electric, an evil henchman on the dying planet; Jacob Davich shows up again, too, this time as another evildoer, Minus. The other characters are various computer-generated creatures that float, race, jump, bob, and weave around the plot line.
The planet itself looks like a gigantic amusement park, and all the adventures the kids have there are like giant amusement-park rides. Rodriguez shot everything on a soundstage in front of a green screen, with CGI effects added later. But unlike "Sin City," which the director was working on concurrently, his integration of live actors and computer surroundings doesn't blend well. The whole of "Sharkboy and Lavagirl" looks like a raucous animated cartoon, with nothing much related to anything else.
The child actors perform as kids might perform in a school play, meaning they do what they can, but even they must have found it hard to take any of this stuff seriously. The movie's theme--that people should never lose their sense of imagination or their lives will become dark and dreary--is commendable, but a lot of viewers older than six or eight are probably going to find the movie a long haul uphill just for the sake of an obvious message.
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[release]17003[/release]