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3-D can't rescue latest 'Spy Kids' film from dreary fate
Daryl Sabara and Alexa Vega star in 'Spy Kids 3-D'
Dimension Films
Director: Robert Rodriguez.
Stars: Daryl Sabara, Alexa Vega, Sylvester Stallone.
MPAA rating: PG for action sequences and peril.
The novelty of a feature-length wide release in 3-D, the first in a while -- excluding the limited release documentary "Ghosts of the Abyss" -- is the element that will permit this sausage of a movie to draw flies for 15 minutes.
The tacked-on pro-family message is as much an afterthought as the message in 1950s nudist romps: "Besides, the sun's warm rays are so good for you."
But what could be more of an afterthought than the minuscule cameo by Antonio Banderas as Gregorio Cortez, the children's father. Top billing, Antonio? For what? Dropping in for the cast party on the final afternoon?
The plot, too negligible to sketch on a business card, has young Juni Cortez (Daryl Sabara) entering the world of a video game to rescue his missing sister Carmen (Alexa Vega). That's it. Find Carmen and shut down the game, which was created by The Toymaker (Sylvester Stallone in one of four small supporting roles).
A lot of movies are about rescue missions. This one self-destructs incrementally.
"Spy Kids 3-D" tosses in Daryl's path a series of arbitrary obstacles, combat challenges, that are revised as if the picture were being made up during production.
Several sequences are so extraneous that you could drop whole chunks without anything being influenced but the running time.
Adults keep out of the way. Salma Hayek has a bit as secret agent Dora. George Clooney appears as The President, which will spook half of the adult viewers. Ricardo Montalban from the previous episodes reprises his role as the children's wizard grandfather.
Mostly the kids compete with each other.
Running mercifully less than 90 minutes, "Spy Kids 3-D" begins in regular two-dimension. Alan Cumming, as Fegan Floop, appears to explain about putting on the cardboard and plastic 3-D glasses as Daryl enters the video game, when then consumes most of the picture's running time.
The one pleasant surprise is that someone, possibly writer-director Robert Rodriguez, had the ingenious idea of attaching an elastic headband -- OK, elastic string -- to the 3-D thingamajigs so they stay in place for the stretched middle section of the movie.
The 3-D works well enough for what it is, and children may enjoy the novelty, but the images are dreary in these sequences. And you haven't seen such fake-looking sets since "Captain Video and the Video Rangers" got laughed off TV for the last time April Fool's Day 1955.
You do remember ...
