Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over 3D Blu-ray Review
MOVIE REVIEW
Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over is the third installment to the Sky Kids franchise. It begins on Juni Cortez right after retiring from the spy organization OSS to pursue his own goals. But when his sister Carmen has become accidentally trapped inside the latest popular video game, Game Over, in an attempt to stop the villainous Toymaker from using the game to enslave children's minds around the world, Juni is brought back into the OSS to go into the game himself and save his sister, and the world while he's at it.
I confess I haven't seen either of the first two Spy Kids movies in quite some time. Maybe I should put them on one of these days, especially just after getting off the third one. But none the less, I remember watching the whole Spy Kids saga as a kid and particularly enjoying the first two films. They were corny and sometimes bizarre, for sure. But, and correct me in the video comments if I'm wrong, there was a degree of heart to them that made them quite enduring, along with its weird sense of fun, that made them both well-rounded and ultimately entertaining family movies. At least, that's how I remember them. I also remember watching the third one, too, but not quite as often. Even to my 10-year-old self, there was just always something about it that rubbed me the wrong way and for the longest time, I couldn't pin down why. I could try rationalizing it by passing it off as a cheesy kids movie. But the first two were also cheesy and I liked them well, too. I wasn't a movie critic back then, so it wasn't my obligation to explain to anyone why I didn't like Spy Kids 3-D, especially in comparison to the first two. But back in the day, I was quite stumped.
And going back at it with fresh eyes as an adult, I still can't tell you why, mainly because this film is the only Spy Kids movie I've watched in the past five or so years. It's because of that that rather than comparing Spy Kids 3-D to its predecessors, I'll just be judging it on its own merits as an average kiddie feature. So how is the film, story-wise, character-wise, and visual-wise? Well, I'd say it's probably about on par with Sharkboy and Lavagirl, which the director Robert Rodriguez also worked on a couple years later. And if you've read my review on that film, you'll know all about how I though that film was a real ham. To its credit, though, Spy Kids 3-D does have a couple things working in its favor that make it objectively slightly better than Sharkboy and Lavagirl. For one, the mechanics of the video game world are actually somewhat comprehensible, and while the story takes plenty of strange directions to hammer home its blatant messages, the main one being about how kids should just stop playing video games, it still make sense for the most part. So I'd say structurally, it's a little more sound than Sharkboy and Lavagirl.
Emphasis on "a little" though. In almost every other respect, Spy Kids 3-D is kind of a hot mess. But just like Sharkboy and Lavagirl, it's the kind of hot mess that can be quite fun if you're in the right mindset. The premise isn't quite as creatively bizarre as Sharkboy and Lavagirl, but those aforementioned "strange directions" come close to making up for it. The CGI is enjoyably atrocious throughout, its allegories for video-game-related issues such as game cheats, programmers, and mind influencing come across as quite forced and cringe, and the characters say and do all sorts of things no rational human would ever say or do (me and my siblings absolutely lost our minds at a certain part of the movie where Juni says something quite dated and ridiculous in the most deadpan manner possible). And beneath all the cheese on display, there really isn't any sort of heart. There are a couple of story threads where they try to bring in some message about forgiveness and family, but they come across as either too undeveloped or executed in too corny of a manner to have any impact. It may not work from a story standpoint. But from an entertainingly bad movie standpoint, it's more than welcome.
So do I recommend Spy Kids 3-D? Yes, but only if you looking a stupid kids flick to poke fun at. If you want a genuinely good family film with a good balance of humor and heart and a plot that makes sense, you won't find it here. And if you're a fan of the first two films and want to check this one out just for the heck of it, my 10-year-old self would probably say you'd be sorely disappointed. But if you want to subject yourself to an iconically bad kids movie mess along the lines of Sharkboy and Lavagirl, it doesn't get much more iconically bad than this.
OVERALL MOVIE RATING: 2/5
3D REVIEW
I hate keep bringing up the name Sharkboy and Lavagirl in every paragraph. But quite honestly, the similarities between that film and Spy Kids 3-D are too great to ignore. And that also goes for how both movies go out of there way to advertise that they're in 3D. Between the two films, though, Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over came out first, and it came out in 2003 when 3D wasn't as mainstream as it nowadays. And when it was shown at the theater, the 3D glasses didn't use the polarized lens that RealD 3D or IMAX 3D used. Instead, the 3D showings used the typical anaglyph 3D glasses. And I've talked about the many issues I have with red/blue 3D glasses, especially in my review of Sharkboy and Lavagirl on 3D DVD. And just like that film, Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over can also be viewed on 3D DVD with the red/blue glasses. But not wanting to go through that color-mismatching experience again, I thankfully managed to find a 3D Blu-ray copy at a reasonable price that had to be imported from the Netherlands (it's not a bootleg, it has a profile on the Blu-ray official website). So now, with the colors intact, I should be out of the woods with 3D issues. Right? Not really, but I'll get to that in a bit.
So how is Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over in 3D? Well, judging by the title alone that utilizes that the fact that this is the third film in the franchise to add a "D" at the end to make the circuit complete, just like with Jaws 3-D, Friday the 13th: Park III-D, and Toy Story 3-D (wait...), this film was made with 3D in mind and seeks to use it at every opportunity possible, for most of the running time at least. Just like with Sharkboy and Lavagirl, the beginning and ending of the film in the boring real world are in standard 2D, and they flash words on screen to signal when to put the glasses on or take them off. Unlike Sharkboy and Lavagirl, though, Floop from the first Spy Kids film comes in for about 2 minutes to explain that process before the feature film begins. And right from the get-go, Robert Rodriguez lets us know what kind of 3D film we're in for. The parallax (distance between objects in the left and right eye view) is the most extreme I've seen in a 3D movie for a long time. The opening logos and title screen have backgrounds that go so far in its insane. And the words themselves are thrown so far out at you, it feels like they're standing just inches away from your eyes (I'll discuss the issues that come with that in a bit). Back to Floop's introduction, the first minute or so where he gives us some information we need before the movie starts are shot in 3D, and the room he's in looks so large it looks like you can walk right in, even though the room is actually quite small. There's even a brief pop up book sequence that explains what happened to Juni in between this film and the last that allows the book to come a good ways out of the screen. And like you'd expect, the small cardboard cutouts on the book are fun to see in 3D.
That's just the first couple minutes, and it sets the tone for the 3D in the rest of the film. Clearly, this isn't like How to Train Your Dragon where the 3D is used to make you feel a part of this film's world in small, subtle ways. Instead, it goes the gimmicky route and throws as much stuff in your face as possible. Sure there are some positives regarding the in-screen depth. But even the poster on the Blu-ray cover wants to let you know this is gonna be an in-your-face type film. And paired with the extreme parallax, the pop outs are literally in your face. To describe all the pop outs that occur during this movie would be like having to describe all the items being sold at a random supermarket. The film can and will throw everything it has your way. But being how it's my job to let you know what you're in for, I'll describe some of the most interesting pop outs I encountered. Right when Juni gets thrust into the game world, he enters a tunnel full of random flying objects. And it doesn't stop there. We are then approached by and jumped upon by frogs on pogo sticks, a flying robot head comes out at us and launches a bunch of goo, parts of robots come flying at us during a mech battle (imagine Pacific Rim but worse), a big race features everything from a boxing glove to vehicles in midair to a pie in the face, there's a duel that has plenty of weapon sticks outs and goo flying out in the room, a hologram of a person's life count sticks out at us when someone loses a life, and there's a ton of other miscellaneous material that pop outs such as lava, floating power ups, character's hands, robots, and holograms.
Inside the screen, the levels of depth the film reaches are nothing less than staggering (or eye-frying, depending on how you see it). We get everything from wide cityscapes to a large mech battle arena to tunnels to a tall lava mountain the characters surf down to floating platforms in the sky that all offer great composition for the 3D (or maybe the 3D forces the great composition).
Now with all the positives being said, I unfortunately have some negatives to address, and they aren't small ones by any means. While we're on the topic of pop outs, I have to say that while I appreciate the filmmakers using 3D to their advantage at every opportunity, I think it wouldn't have hurt to show a little restraint in certain areas. While the pop outs are pretty fun for the first little while, the novelty pretty quickly wears off. And soon enough, you find yourself pretty numb to them. Not only that, but I feel the people behind the 3D of this film were so caught up in throwing things are far out at you as they could that they didn't realize how 3D, done wrong, can warp the perception of an object's size. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt because this was done way back in 2003. But still, you can tell what I'm talking about pretty early on when we first put on the glasses right before we're thrust into the game. Juni is simply standing waiting to be thrown into the game and he's placed super far out of the screen. However, unlike something like How to Train Your Dragon where how far the characters leave the screen is correlated to how zoomed in on them the camera is, here, the camera is in the same position as it was in when the film was in 2D. So yes, Juni does look like he's right in our face, but it also looks like he's just a couple feet tall now. This isn't just a one time issue. There are plenty of times the 3D will place something or someone so far out of the screen, but the camera isn't in the right position for it, so the characters or objects just like tiny. Going back to that flying robot head I mentioned earlier, he's about several feet tall as we see when compared to Juni. But there are a few times when he exits the screen to such an extreme degree he appears just a couple of inches.
There are a few other issues regarding the 3D that prevent me from giving it a high rating. One of those is how certain people or objects are placed in 3D space. There is a weird effect that shows up somewhat frequently where whenever the characters are walking on a CG platform, be it on a metal floor or even on the moon, it either looks like their standing in the floor or on a glass panel above the floor. I take it the filmmakers just couldn't really mesh the characters with the CG environment because there are also other times such as when someone pushes a button or handles a floating power up when either someone's hand or the object at hand is just in the wrong place. I don't want to put the blame for these distracting images solely on the 3D because like I said, it mainly comes down to how the characters mesh with environment. But then there are also some straight up bizarre shots such as on the moon when the earth in the background appears right over the surface of the moon or someone or something's shape gets warped. And lastly, there's the intense parallax. Normally, I'm all for strong 3D. But eventually, there comes a point when the amount of the depth on-screen gets to be so much that your eyes struggle to make sense of the image. This is one of those few 3D films where I actually got eye strain, and it wasn't just in a few select segments. It was pretty much throughout the whole thing. And the constant pop outs didn't exactly help. While the film itself is appropriate for children, I'd caution against bringing young kids whose tiny eyes might be sensitive to the harsh 3D on display.
All in all, I'd say Spy Kids 3-D's 3D is a mixed bag. I do want to commend the filmmakers for certainly using 3D and making one of the films that got people to start believing in 3D again. But on the other hand, the 3D itself, while definitely having a lot of fun with its immense depth and near constant pop outs, is plagued with errors and eye-frying intense 3D imagery that make it tough for me to give it a recommendation. I'd probably say, just like Sharkboy and Lavagirl, if you're planning to sit this real piece of insanity, you'd probably be best seeing it the way it was intended, in all of its in-your-face 3D glory. But it'd be best to be prepared to deal with all of its shortcomings. I will say this, though: at the least, I didn't have to experience it on those unpleasant red/blue glasses. In between picking up the anaglyph 3D DVD or the 3D Blu-ray from the Netherlands, I'd sure for recommend the latter.
3D RATING: OK (bordering on NOT GOOD)
FINAL THOUGHTS
I think most people by now know Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over is not a very good movie. It's harmless enough, but beneath all the CGI visual effects and the pretty basic storyline, there's not much to appreciate. But like most things in life, it's all a matter of perspective. This is undeniably a bad movie, but the ways in which is fall flat in and of themselves make for some great entertainment. If you're willing to gather up some friends to poke fun of a surreal-looking CG fever dream of a movie, I highly recommend Spy Kids 3-D. And if you have little to no respect for the health of your eyes, it'd be best to get the 3D version while your it. Watching this film without getting things thrown in your face every 5 seconds is like eating spam and eggs without the spam. Those who wish to see what insanity awaits for them in Spy Kids 3-D have to take it all the way. If that's not you, that's perfectly understandable. But if it is, find the 3D Blu-ray and give it a watch. Or if you want to see it the way it was intended at the theater, maybe pick up the anaglyph 3D DVD (not recommended, but hey. If that's what you're looking for, it's certainly available).
BUY IT HERE
DID YOU LIKE "SPY KIDS 3-D: GAME OVER" IN 3D?
0%Yes
0%No, I'd rather take off that "D" at the end
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