Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over

What’s the Story?

In SPY KIDS 3-D: GAME OVER, an evil man called the Toymaker (Sylvester Stallone) has created a computer game called "Game Over," and Carmen Cortez (Alexa Vega) somehow gets lost inside the game. If her brother Juni (Daryl Sabara) cannot shut down the game before it goes on the market, the game will enable the Toymaker to take over the world or worse. In the game, Juni meets up with beta testers and battles Demetra (Courtney Jines) in gladiator-style combat. He develops a crush in both senses of the word as he slams her avatar-robot around in between gazing longingly at the way that fetching lock of hair keeps falling in front of her determined but sparkling eyes.

Is It Any Good?

The special effects may be in 3-D, but the story is flat, and there is very little of the quirky humor of the first two movies. This one is just non-stop loud, hurtling, special effects, most of it is like one long computer game, with one set of pixels fighting another.. To be scrupulously fair to the sensibilities of its target audience, I must admit that halfway through this movie my 8-year-old godson leaned over to me and whispered, "This is AWESOME!" I wish I could say that I felt the same way.

The first two Spy Kids movies combined brilliantly imaginative visual effects, thrilling (but not too scary) action, silly fun, and a lot of heart. With this last in the series, writer-director-editor-producer-composer Robert Rodriguez is either so enthralled or so overwhelmed by the 3-D technology that he forsakes the essentials of plot and character. We also miss the characters of the first two. Many of them appear only in brief cameos that are merely distracting. Stallone plays four parts-- all of them badly.