After the most compelling entry of his career with “Sin City”, Robert Rodriguez is back in typical form with “The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D”. Continuing his career flip-flopping between macho bloody action and colorful family adventure fare, the filmmaker furthers his journey to the land of greenscreen based movie making and 3-D experimentation. Rodriguez always purports the myth of his filmmaking Renaissance man status, taking credit for not only directing, but also shooting, editing, writing, scoring, and coordinating special effects, (all, of course, in the off hours from being an active dad to his family,) but none of that makes up for the fact that his films are typically hollow. “Sharkboy and Lavagirl” is no exception, proving that the overall quality of his films is tied directly to the quality of their source material. Simply contrast this films’ starting point, reportedly dreamt up by his son in the swimming pool, versus the highly acclaimed Frank Miller “Sin City” comics. There is, of course, no comparison. Sure, Rodriguez was no doubt in search of a new family franchise to replace the well worn “Spy Kids” series, but one can’t help but conjure the image of him wallowing in his fame and fortune, loudly proclaiming “Look everyone, I’m so rich and powerful, I can make a movie out of any old crap!”
As far as the movie itself goes, it’s essentially a graphics-cluttered combo of “The Neverending Story” and “The Wizard of Oz”, all presented in headache inducing 3-D. It’s the story of Max, a chronic daydreamer on the brink of adolescence whose crumbing homelife and bully problems are averted by his vivid visits from his imaginary friends Sharkboy and Lavagirl. But are they really imaginary? That’s a prominent question in the beginning of the movie that is tossed aside by the midway point. The super-powered pair arrive from their threatened home world, Planet Drool, taking Max back home with them because he’s the only one who can dream hard enough to save the place. There’s a lot of muddled junior level psycho-babble about the value of dreams, and using your dreams to benefit the world instead of for selfish, escapist means, but mostly, it’s just a lot of chases through computer generated weird dream environments. The kids are pursued by the villainous Mr. Electric, a bizarre sci-fi take on Max’s teacher, Mr. Electicidad (George Lopez). One of the film’s few inspired elements is Electric’s henchmen, which are simply giant extension cords slithering around to rattlesnake sound effects.
Sharkboy and Lavagirl themselves are flat supporting characters to Max, although it is amusing to note the frustration of Lavagirl trying to figure out her place in Max’s pre-pubescent fantasy life. When she’s not worrying that she’s evil or irrelevant, she’s inspiring Max to dream them to safety with forced, tooth-baring grins that scream out “what’s my motivation?”. The latent proto-sexual angst continues with the overly aggressive Sharkboy, an aquatic Wolverine Jr. in search of his lost father. In Max’s real life, his own father (David Arquette) is a jobless writer, adrift in his marriage to a frustrated career woman (Kristen Davis). The tin can robot Tobor (get it?) his dad once unsuccessfully helped him attempt to build now sits in a box in the closet, but on Planet Drool, Tobor’s parts live, and assist the kids in their adventure. The film is ultimately positive to a fault, with its quick fixes to recognizable and all too common domestic problems, but I can’t help but wonder what a good child psychologist would have to say about all this.
The lesson of holding onto ones dreams, and trying to use them for the greater good is certainly not a bad one, but it’s not exactly new to the family film sub-genre, and all the 3-D gimmickry in the world can’t freshen it up. The film also embraces the kind of cringe-inducing “extreme” style-over-substance aesthetic found in obnoxious kids TV commercials, full of things like screaming close-ups and lots of 3-D food-spitting. This isn’t new to Rodriguez’ family fare, and is something he brings unapologetically, but he did it much better in the first “Spy Kids”. Rodriguez seems to be out to show the world that he’s not just a kid at heart, he’s a MODERN kid at heart. Perhaps he fancies himself the Peter Pan of indie filmmaking, sans the traditional Barrie ending where Wendy tells Peter it’s time to grow up. Come hell of high water, Rodriguez will continue to dream his CGI dreams, and will continue dragging us along for the ride.
If it seems I’m overusing the word “dream”, well, I am, but it’s nothing compared to the movie, where every five minutes someone is cheering Max to use his vague but somehow powerful dream powers. They urge him to not use them for wish fulfillment (dreaming of giant cookies, for instance), despite the fact that every Rodriguez film is built on the notion of vicarious wish fulfillment in one way or another. Only this time it’s a thin “family film” in 3-D – a fun visual process that has a history of schlocky charm, but also of subpar films. Kind of like Rodriguez himself.
- Jim Tudor