Director: Robert Rodriguez
Cast:Daryl Sabara, Alexa Vega, Sylvester Stallone, Ricardo Montalban

The third time’s not exactly the charm for the Spy Kids franchise, but it does carry the novelty of being in 3-D. Not that the 3-D technology is any good. In fact, like the two films before it, Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over is merely just average.

In this brief adventure, Juni (Daryl Sabara) has broken off from the rest of his secret agent Cortez family to become a detective. He’s lured back into the fold, however, when his sister (Alexa Vega) disappears into an evil video game created by the Toymaker (a terrible Sylvester Stallone) to brainwash America’s youth.

Thus, Juni straps on some 3-D glasses (and so do you) as he enters the game’s virtual world, where he fights robots, races vehicles and engages in all sorts of derring-do existing only to make things come toward the camera. He’s assisted by his handicapped grandfather, played by Ricardo Montalban. Strangely, the Spy Kids parents – Antonio Banderas and Carla Gugino – don’t even show up until the last 10 minutes, and that’s when it becomes cameoville for every other actor from the series, including Bill Paxton, Alan Cumming, Tony Shalhoub, Cheech Marin, George Clooney and Steve Buscemi. In for the long haul as the team members watching Juni play the game are Mike Judge and Salma Hayek, of whom the 3-D technology does not take advantage, if you know what I mean.

It’s enjoyable, but disposable and ultimately overkill. Writer-director Robert Rodriguez clearly deserves credit for being responsible for just about everything you see in what is essentially a home movie, but one wishes he’d scripted more than just a skeleton to be dressed up with Xbox imagery. One also wishes he’d found a better actor to essay the role of the Toymaker and his three
henchmen, because Stallone is no Peter Sellers. Or Mike Myers. Or even Tim Conway, for that matter.

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Rod Lott is the publisher of Hitch Magazine: The Journal of Pop Culture Absurdity.