Amateurish yarn -- The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl (3-D)
PINT-SIZED HEROES: The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl
The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl (3-D)
Genre: Fantasy
Director: Robert Rodriguez
Cast: Cayden Boyd, Taylor Lautner, Taylor Dooley, George Lopez, David Arquette, Kristin Davis
Storyline: Max dreams up two mini superheroes and gets sucked into their worlds.
Bottomline: A dream you will want to awaken from.
Even though you get a prop to participate in this film (3D glasses), it's a cumbersome and boring experience as the pint-sized heroes try to save the daydream and learn to be unselfish in the process.
`The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl' by `Sin City' director Robert Rodriguez (who also made `Spy Kids' in 3D) was conceptualised by his son Race when he was seven. And it shows that the story is a half-baked, amateurish fantasy that gets to be a drag — childish dreams are best left to children.
Cayden Boyd as Max (also Racer's middle name) has a rough life. He prefers to escape his reality of bullies for classmates and parents (David Arquette and Kristin Davis) losing patience with each other. He does this in the land of Drool that frankly, isn't very cool, despite the milk river and giant marshmallow cookies.
This of course makes him even more unpopular with the cool kids, when he starts talking as if his dream heroes Shark Boy (SB) and Lava Girl (LG) are real. But come on, a child with golden locks, big dreamy eyes and a `dream journal' is just asking to be pummelled!
Anyway, he is called on for help as someone has taken over the Land of Drool. SB and LG's superpowers aren't enough if the dream that created them fades.
The rest of the movie involves high voltage characters who spout cheesy lines such as "Watt's up?" a train of thought and a stream of consciousness.
SUSAN MUTHALALY
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