Father Geek here with another Capone review... I saw this one myself along with Harry, sistersatan, and 3 yearold KublaKhan (my grandson) and it was great fun. We saw it at the World Premiere here in Austin with carnival rides, bar b-q, and tons of stars.... lil' KublaKhan was transfixed, he never removed his 3-D glasses even when eating and riding the rides after the flick. He is still wearing his VIP armband he had to put on before the film on Sunday... Its a great family film, heck, its a great little adventure flick regardless of your age... Now here's what Capone has to say...
Hey, all. Capone in Chicago here. There are a million and one sequels coming out this year, and two of the ones I was most looking forward to were both directed by the same dude. One is ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO. Read on for the other...
For those of you who never tapped into the SPY KIDS films, that’s a real shame because you don’t know what you’re missing. These films are coming from the mind and camera of a man who is, among other things, almost exactly my age. My point in bringing this up is to say that although Robert Rodriguez has claimed to have made these films for youngsters, there is so much here that grown children are going to appreciate far more than the kiddies. The extended tribute to stop-motion animation guru Ray Harryhausen in SPY KIDS 2 makes my point for me. Rodriguez has also recruited a stable of actors that normally wouldn’t appear in your typical lame-o children’s movie, but more on that later.
SPY KIDS 3-D is, I believe, the last film in the franchise, and it bares the wear marks of a series of films that is on the verge of seeing its time come and go. Most of the characters we grew to love in the first two films are barely on screen. The main carryovers from SK2 are, of course, Daryl Sabara as secret agent Juni Cortez, Alexa Vega’s older sister Carmen Cortez (who appears in about half the film). Also showing up for most of the film is the kids disabled grandfather, played wonderfully by Ricardo Montalban. The scenario here centers around the release of a video game called Game Over, designed by a mysterious designer known only as The Toymaker (known to us as Sylvester Stallone). When the leaders of the spy network OSS (represented by Salma Hayek and Mike Judge) find out that The Toymaker is planning to trap the minds of children in his video game once they reach its unwinnable Level 5, they yank Juni out of retirement to save the world’s children and his sister, who is trapped in the game already. With a little help from former OSS leader and current U.S. President George Clooney, Juni is back in the game, literally.
If SK2 paid tribute to Harryhausen, SK3-D is more an homage to TRON. The video game world doesn’t look nearly as visually realistic as games do today, but I think that’s the point. Rodriguez may have also kept the look of the game world primitive to better accommodate the 3-D photography, which is employed for about 75 percent of the film, at least. By the way, the glasses you use for this film are the old blue-and-red style, thus the picture’s color is a little muddy, but the 3-D effect works well if you don’t mind feeling like you’re color blind for 90 minutes. In the game, Juni meets other players who alternate between helping and hindering him. They think Juni is “The Guy” (a funny play on THE MATRIX’s The One), the one who will lead them to the end of the game either to win it or shut it down. In one of the film’s funniest sequences and cameos (which I won’t ruin, but I will say is an actor Rodriguez has worked with before), another candidate for the title of The Guy challenges Juni’s reign. Juni calls in his grandfather to provide the brains of the operation, and Montalban’s character is given a very cool set of legs for most of the film.
Rodriguez finds a rather uninspired way of bringing back pretty much every major character from the other two SPY KIDS films for the climactic battle, including the kids’ parent played by Antonio Banderas and Carla Gugino, both of whom inexplicably get top billing in this film despite being in it for about two minutes. But it’s great to see old pros and Rodriguez associates like Steve Buscemi, Alan Cumming (who provides a stellar introduction to the film and to the 3-D glasses), Danny Trejo, Cheech Marin, Bill Paxton, and Tony Shalhoub on screen, even for just a few seconds a piece. From the way this film is shot, it almost looks like some of the actors who appear to be in the same scene together may not have filmed their parts at the same time. I felt kind of cheated by the end. On the other hand, Stallone absolutely floored me. I wouldn’t call his performance as The Toymaker “great,” but he does not hold back. He’s genuinely wacky. Add to that that he also plays three other characters in the film (each representing a part of his character’s fractured personality), and you hold in your hand the scene-stealing star of the film. Sly’s humility is out the window, and the movie is all the better for it.
Along with his upcoming ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO (the continuation to his films EL MARIACHI and DESPERADO), Rodriguez’s SPY KIDS 3 represents him essentially turning the corner on this part of his career, which isn’t a bad thing. I think the guy is vastly talented, and now it’s time to move past the things that made him famous and onto things that will keep him that way.
Capone
capone@aintitcoolmail.com
