CS Weekly Archive > Weekend Read > 06/10/05

SHARKskinned

By joshua Tyler

The Adventures of Shark Boy & Lava Girl in 3-D

Robert Rodriguez (also directed)
Based on the stories and dreams of Racer Rodriguez

Photocopy most of the pages from the screenplay used on Wolfgang Peterson's 1984 children's classic The Neverending Story and slap the words The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl in 3-D over the title and you've got Robert Rodriguez's latest family film. The story for the movie is credited to Rodriguez's seven-year-old son Racer, and the plot plays so simply that he might have written the whole thing. It kicks off familiarly, with a geeky kid (Cayden Boyd) abused in the real world for being a dreamer. One day his dreams come true and he's suddenly whisked into the fantasy world home of Shark Boy (Taylor Lautner) and Lava Girl (Taylor Dooley), two pre-teen superheroes he made up. There in a land of robots, roller coasters, and cookie giants our boy Max is lauded as a hero and expected to save the planet Drool from an evil scenery swallowing cloud called "The Darkness" (no relation to the cross-dressing rock band). The film throws together a lot of different ideas, just none that fit together into anything interesting. While the script was geared specifically to kids, that doesn't mean it has to be so derivative; Robert Rodriguez, usually known for his creativity and innovation, should be better than this.

The Adventures of Shark Boy & Lava Girl in 3-D

Miramax
Rated PG; 93 min.

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Joshua Tyler writes about movies as editor-in-chief of CinemaBlend.com and in free newspapers around the country. He has never won an award and would probably be suspicious if he did.

The Adventures of Shark Boy & Lava Girl in 3-D courtesy Miramax

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