Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over (2003) Review

 Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over (2003) 3/10

Hello everyone and welcome to an even worse movie that I have ever seen. Spy Kids 3 was released on July 25, 2003, with the director being Robert Rodriguez, who did the previous Spy Kids movies. For those of you that grew up in the 2000’s, do you remember when studios were trying to push that 3D marketing where shit from the screen will pop up at you if you wear special glasses? Yeah I’m like 90% sure that this movie is what started that stupid fad. Spy Kids 3D is not a good movie from both children’s or adult’s perspectives. I enjoyed this movie when I first saw it but then like 20 minutes afterwards I had the thought of “wow that was actually bad”, but with me being the stupid kid that I was, I didn’t really pay any mind to that thought. Watching this now was a complete chore and I wouldn’t force it on my worst enemy. Let’s begin.

Story follows Juni as he rescues his sister Carmen from a virtual reality video game where she has been captured and has gone missing. To free her, Juni has to go into the game, beat it, and prevent the mastermind behind all of this, The Toymaker, from escaping his cyber prison. Along the way, Juni will meet up with some beta testers named Arnold, Francis, and Rez that'll assist him on his journey. The game is five levels long and each level has a certain theme to it. You got urban theme with frogs on pogo sticks, a space theme with a mech battle, a race track, machine city, floating platforms used for stick fights, lava surfing, and whatever the purple room was.

I'll just say this now: the story for this is absolute garbage. It's incoherent, inconsistent, plot holes everywhere, and the movie tends to forget that there's a story here at all sometimes. I know this is a children's movie that's aimed towards little kids, but c'mon, at least put some effort into this. The entire movie feels really shallow when compared to the first movie. There's this subplot with Juni's grandfather in which he tries to exact his revenge against the Toymaker because he was the one that put him in the wheelchair. During their final confrontation, Juni's grandfather takes the moral high ground and says that "when you took my legs, I missed a lot of things in my life. Walking with my wife on the beach, my daughter's birth, and her wedding. But when you took them, I gain something too: humility, spirituality, understanding. Despite all of that, I came here to say that I forgive you." It's actually a heartwarming moment, but it means jack shit because this is the only character development we see between these two. We never get to see what happened between them and it's a huge missed opportunity.

There's so much bullshit here that I don't even know where to start. The thing that really bothered me the most is at the end when the dad flies in from the OSS, gets the glasses, flies up to one of the robot's heads and just starts punching it. You're meaning to tell me that a basic human man can go toe to toe with a robot and punch hardened steel with his bare hands, sustain no damage, and destroy the robot on his own? Get the fuck outta here! There's also bullshit with the mech fight on the moon. You pilot a giant mech by standing on a platform where the head would be. However you move, the mech moves. This is bullshit because if you're knocked down, wouldn't you fall off the platform and not be able to pilot it anymore? Or in another case, since you're on the moon, wouldn't you be floaty with your movements? These are just 2 instances of bullshit and there's plenty more within the movie.

There’s also the whole thing with Elijah Wood. My guy pops up for literally 2 minutes only to die on screen. He’s “The Guy”, the strongest player in the game and he fucking dies 2 minutes after his introduction. It’s so laughably stupid.

Acting is ok at best. Honestly I really like Sylvester Stallone as the main villain. He's honestly the best part of the movie. Everybody else was either complete shit or just okay.

The CG in this is fucking terrible too. Idk how they did it, but this movie looks worse than the second film. There's moments where characters would walk off platforms, items they're holding would phase through their hands, and just overall horrible blending between human and CG. The 3D models look terrible too (such as the giant robot gorillas at the end). It's clear that this movie is just another cash grab to sell merch and make a quick buck.

Music is ass as well. Either it's completely forgettable or it ruins the moment of whatever is happening. The only decent song that I can think of is the second song that plays during the end credits and even then that's meh.

Overall, this movie is a piece of shit. It's only at its rating because of its laughably terrible and the cast is actually decent. This is actually kinda sad for me cause when I was younger, I thought this was the best thing ever. I love video games and I loved this series so I lost my shit when I first saw this advertised on TV. And then I actually went to watch it and I was slightly disappointed. Please stay away from this film. Keep yourself, your kids, your family, and other people from this movie.

Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time.

This is Zorgak, signing off.