THE ADVENTURES OF SHARK BOY AND LAVA GIRL IN 3-D
By
Victoria Alexander
FilmsInReview.com

Writer-director Robert Rodriguez based this 3-D extravaganza on superhero stories created by his seven year-old son Racer. By the way, all Rodriguez’s films are produced by his wife, Elizabeth Avellan. So let’s do some psychological treading into the fertile young mind of Racer Rodriguez.

Ten-year-old Max (Cayden Boyd) is bullied at school, has no friends, and his parents are unhappy. Dad (David Arquette) doesn’t have a job. Mom (Kristin Davis) is the miserable breadwinner. Mom is holding the family together since her husband is a failed dreamer and her son is troubled. Walking cute, blond Max to school, she ominously tells him to come right home, she has to talk him.

Max deals with his loneliness by keeping a “dream journal.” Instead of wisely keeping the contents of his dreams to himself, he reads the story of Shark Boy (Taylor Lautner) and Lava Girl (Taylor Dooley) to his class. Shark Boy was being raised only by his father until they are lost at sea. Separated from his father, Max is adopted and raised by sharks. He sheds his human nature by becoming half-shark. The mysterious Lava Girl (Taylor Dooley) has angry superpowers. She burns things up.

Max’s fourth grade teacher, Mr. Electricidad (George Lopez), tries to get Linus (Jacob Davich) to stop bullying Max by giving him demerits. The class humiliates Max’s tale of superhero kids until Shark Boy and Lava Girl actually turn up and demand Max help them save their home planet, Planet Drool, from utter destruction.

Like the WIZARD OF OZ, Planet Drool has some eerie characters that look just like Linus and Mr. Electricidad. Formerly Linus, now Minus, he is a Dracula-like villain in a cape. He sits on a sofa-throne. And Minus’s flunky is a metal spider robot, Mr. Electric, that has Max’s teacher’s face and demeanor. Since Max’s dad is an amateur electrics fan, this is also a coincidence that is suspect. Then there is the kid fairy godmother that looks suspiciously like the prettiest girl in Max’s class. And what about the OZ-like tornado that destroys Max’s Texas neighborhood and classroom?

Or not.

Perhaps Max has Carrie Get Even powers.

We go along with bewildered Max as he retreats into a fantasy world populated with magical ice caps, candy, and cookies. However, there is a fascinating positive theme running through SHARK BOY & LAVA GIRL 3D: The importance of having dreams that you can make come true. There is nothing as haunting and mesmerizing as dreams. There is a lot of spouted dream philosophy and cute things like the Train of Thought. Now, since everyone dreams, and gets caught up in self-defeating psychological nightmares from time to time, perhaps Max is working out his family problems by constructing a doomed Planet Drool.

Max’s parents slip away without solving their problems. Because, as we all know, children have little power that, in come cases, necessitates making up imaginary friends with superpowers and a planet filled with pleasure and danger.

If you are a fan of 3D, then this is the movie to see. We have the inspirational child-like delight of Rodriguez and his technical wizardry. He must seriously enjoy making family films.

I prefer his ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO filmmaking and the dazzling FRANK MILLER’S SIN CITY (with Miller really putting the spit in the film); however, if you are a kid and enjoy the blurry blue-tinted world of 3D, SHARK BOY AND LAVA GIRL is for you.

Victoria Alexander answers your emails (though she is trekking through Tibet for the month of June). She can be reached by visiting FilmsInReview.com or, directly, at masauu@aol.com.