Spy Kids III:  Game Over

...the lesser demanding of the trilogies out there.

So you're not ready to sit through 12 hours of Lord of the Ring movies. You're tired of seeing Elijah Wood on every orifice of the television set, and you're so ultra-hip that you've begun the early backlash against the trilogy. 

Sadly, you won't be escaping Elijah Wood in "Spy Kids III: Game Over" I can tell you that much.

I have a confession to make:  I'm not a real Austinite.  I have not seen the first or second movies of this series.  Yet, I'm not quite jaded enough that during a big battle sequence that I don't notice the backdrop of downtown and the area I go walking around nearly every day.  To me, that's exciting.  I'm sure the rest of you who live in Tallequah don't care.  All you see is the faux-finished version of the United States Capitol lurking in the background. 

This film shot at a blazingly fast pace.  I was stumbling over it trying to drive to work just a scant couple of months before it came out in the theaters.  It's either a testament to Robert Rodriguez's genius, or maybe the fact that he needs to slow down a bit to make higher quality films.

So, I start with the 3rd movie of the series.  It's basically like a retelling of the Matrix.  Juni must go into a video game and save his sister Carmen from the evil Toymaker (played by notable Raspberry Award recipient for the role Sylvester Stallone, although I wonder at the choice because I've seen worse).     The enemies and the turncoats are spotted a mile away, but the plot is genuinely family oriented in a Hispanic way.

I mean that as a compliment.  From the Hispanic people I've known, it seems like their family binds are stronger than most white people in modern America.  There is something distinctive about it that I can't put my finger on, yet I think it serves as a better role model than most Disney films where there is one parent and one child, and the tiny family is left battling amongst each other to find common ground.  Instead, in this movie, the family finds strength in each other, even with Grandpa (Ricardo Montalban who is always cool wherever he turns up) not simply being a wheelchair-bound vegetable.

Yet, even with it's strong points, I again wished that Rodriguez would slow down when making his movies.  I think he enjoys the manic speed that he works at, but let's face it:  most of his films are crap.  This shouldn't be the case for someone who has his skill.  Maybe even taking a break for a couple of days and returning with new eyes might help.  In my mind, I see him going at full speed without sleeping and believing that since he had been breathing this film for 3 weeks straight that it's ready.

Spy Kids III has a few cute moments in it, but all the same, I was glad that the movie was only 90 minutes in length.