Review of The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl

I personally have no real problem with 3D, as long as it is done well and has a good story and characters. Sadly, that's where The Adventures of SharkBoy and Lava Girl fails. I like Robert Rodriguez and thought his first two Spy Kids movies were very enjoyable and while mediocre I actually thought the third Spy Kids film was better than this too. I will give some credit, the moral is decent if hardly original and there is some energy. But everything else falls flat.

People might say the art direction was colourful and pleasing to the eye. Sorry, for me it was very tacky, gaudy and brash. And as for the 3D, it is actually some of the worst I've seen, it needed more clarity and sharpness and sometimes moved too fast. Also I found it distracting in alternative to enhancing. The soundtrack is rather plodding, generic and unmemorable too.

The script is absolutely awful too. Any parts that tried to be funny made me roll my eyes to be perfectly honest with you, while the story is unevenly paced and very weak and predictable. The characters are just as weak and bland too, the two main characters have their likable moments but there is little chemistry between them and the audience while the supporting characters fare even worse suffering either from being underused or overacted. Overall, the acting is very uneven and way too broad in some cases.

Other disappointments are the poor pace and plodding direction from Rodriguez. So in conclusion, the result is a pretty awful, overstuffed and disappointing effort of a family film. 1/10 Bethany Cox