Movie
Review | Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over
Reviewed by: Brian
Orndorf
For reasons not really explained, Juni Cortez (Daryl Sabara) has
left the OSS in disgust, and has begun a life as a pre-teen private
eye. When an evil inventor known as “The Toymaker” (Sylvester
Stallone, good-natured and funny) is about to unleash his new,
all-powerful, kid-hypnotizing video game onto the masses, the OSS (Salma
Hayek and Mike Judge) call in Juni to save the day. His incentive for
cooperation is his sister Carmen (Alexa Vega), who is stuck in a coma
on the game’s 4th level and needs Juni’s help. Assisted
by his wheelchair-bound grandfather (Ricardo Montalban, who, through
effects, is able to walk again), Juni leaps into the virtual world
with only 12 hours to take down the Toymaker and save kids everywhere.
With the “Odorama” featured in “Rugrats Go Wild,” and now
the return of 3-D in “Spy Kids 3-D,” the gimmicky nature of recent
family filmmaking makes it feel like it was the 1950s all over again.
Truthfully though, director Robert Rodriguez (who writes, edits,
shoots, oversees special effects, and scores the film, along with
probably passing around hot towels in between takes) needs all the
help he can get, as this new (and reportedly last) installment of his
hyperactive “Spy Kids” franchise is starting to show the signs of
a honored guest who has overstayed his visit far too long.
It all started with such great promise back in 2001. “Spy Kids”
was a dream come true: an inventive family film that never talked down
to its audience, and wasn’t weighed down by principles. Boosted by
Rodriguez’s desire to create an adventure his kids could enjoy, the
original “Spy Kids” was something to celebrate. “Spy Kids 2”
couldn’t match the original’s tone nor restraint, with Rodriguez
falling far too much in love with the special effects he found so easy
to control in the first film. “Spy Kids 2” was fun, but the
stretchmarks were beginning to show.
That brings us to “Spy Kids 3-D,” which in a neat idea,
conceptually speaking: with all of Hollywood’s movies trying to ape
video games, why not make a film that is a video game? The plot
can function both as a thumbing-of-the-nose at other filmmakers, as
well as giving the ADD kids out there are virtual world to play in.
“3-D” goes horribly wrong when it becomes clear that Rodriguez is
all too happy to jettison the heart and imagination of the earlier
“Spy Kids” installments just to try out his new special effect
techniques. “Spy Kids 3-D” is everything the first film wasn’t:
heartless, and sometimes obnoxious. As eye candy, it doesn’t get
much better, with Rodriguez having a New Year’s Eve-style bash
staging mayhem around the video game world. I especially got a kick
out of the walkways made up with “Tetris” blocks. But all the
colors, 3-D photography, and a startling list of cameos (which mines
actors from each past Rodriguez production) can’t save a picture
that has no structure or even the slightest wisp of logic. “3-D”
is up, figuratively and literally, in the audiences’ face, but is
this what Rodriguez needs to do to keep this franchise going? As
limitless as his imagination has proven before, I’m afraid Rodriguez
has run this series into the ground. This is even sadder because there
was still so much potential to be revealed in this series before the
director became effects-crazed.
Just as frustrating as seeing the special effects take over the
story is the way Rodriguez casually throws away continuity between the
films to suit his whims, shadowing the plight of the “Highlander“
films. The subplot about Juni’s private eye experiences is cute, but
it doesn’t match the end of “Spy Kids 2,” because it suggests
Juni’s repulsion with the OSS, which wasn’t there before. Also,
the villain of “Spy Kids 2” is back to being a good guy in
“3-D.” Huh? It’s careless in delivery, and a bit offensive in
arrangement, giving the impression that Rodriguez doesn’t care much
for the connective tissue that some audience members still need to
enjoy sequels (he did the same thing with “Spy Kids 2”). He also
doesn’t do his characters any favors, turning “Spy Kids” into
“Spy Kid.” The cornerstone dynamic between siblings Carmen and
Juni has been ditched in “3-D,” with Carmen not appearing in the
film until the hour mark. While I like Sabara, and find him to be a
better-than-average child actor, his performance was always helped by
the interplay between him and Vega. Since she’s been all but written
out of the entire film (Vega’s consolation prize seems to be an
adequate stab singing the film‘s theme song, run during the end
credits), Sabara is all alone, without his partner in crime, and the
film is diminished by it.
Also oddly cut out of the picture is the Cortez family dynamic,
which was the message of “Spy Kids” at one point. Dad Gregorio
(Antonio Banderas), mom Ingrid (Carla Gugino), uncles Machete (Danny
Trejo) and Felix (Cheech Marin), and Grandmother (Holland Taylor) are
all reduced to cameos, Gugino shockingly with only one or two lines.
“3-D” comes into being in the climax, which brings everybody back
together to fight evil, bringing back with them the amiable and
comical reasons why the first two films worked so well. The buzz is
short lived, since Rodriguez buries the reunion with even more cameos
from past “Spy Kids” adventures. It’s hilarious to see that
Banderas is top billed in the end credits, when his role probably
consisted of a single late afternoon in an Austin, TX green-screen
studio.
If this is the last adventure for Juni and Carmen, then so be it.
Robert Rodriguez has taken the fun out of the series, and I would hate
to consider what would be up his sleeve had there been another
installment in the planning stages. After three consecutive years of
“Spy Kids,” it’s time Rodriguez moves on and sharpen his
imaginative tools once again.
Grade: 5/10
|
