The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl in 3-D

If you've never seen a 3-D movie and want to see one before you die, it might as well be this one. Otherwise, this movie is a major disappointment.

I try to see most movies because, well, I'm a critic. This includes most of the so-called children's movies. This one I had high hopes for because it's directed by Robert Rodriguez, a very hot director who just released a very hot Oscar contender in the form of Sin City.

Rodriguez also directed all the movies in the Spy Kids series, which have always been fascinating, even if the 2nd and 3rd movies weren't quite as excellent as the first.

The problem with this one is that it had the potential to be as good as Spy Kids, but failed due primarily to the fact that RR indulged his son, who wrote the story and the dialog and obviously had a big hand in the entire decision-making process.

Perhaps the crappy dialog could have been saved to some extent by superior acting, but the acting here was not particularly superior. The kids substituted overacting or not acting for real acting and George Lopez was George Lopez. The only two real actors in the movie were David Arquette and Kristin Davis as the young protagonist's father and mother, but they are not on screen much and don't have a lot to work with interms of dialog.

The result is a movie that would be a Nickelodeon direct-to-video reject.

In a nutshell, a boy of about 12 has invented (or has he met?) a pair of child superheroes, Shark Boy and Lava Girl. His classmates think he's silly until the two young superheroes show up to ask for his help in fighting evil. That's really enough of a plot setup for you.

I mentioned that this is a 3-D movie. You need to wear the glasses with one red and one blue lens. I don't think most people who've seen one 3-D movie is in a big hurry to see another one. Why? Well, while the 3-D effect is somewhat cool, the glasses greatly limits the color palette. and the 3-D scenes tend to be limited to only small variations on red, blue, white, and black. Anything that would normally be yellow or green becomes some yellowish or greenish variation on red or blue. Me, I'd rather have the natural colors. I imagine/hope that when this movie is released to the video market, the 3-D is gone.