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'Shark Boy & Lava Girl': 3-D just ratchets up the annoyance

You want to give the movie a break, you really do. "The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl in 3-D" is, of course, made by hometown hero Robert Rodriguez wholly in Austin with a sizable batch of local crew. It's also "based on the stories and dreams" of Rodriguez's middle son, Racer Max, 8, so, you know, it's a movie partly conceived by an innocent child, who really shouldn't be dragged into such ugly things as heartless film criticism. Warning: Things are going to get nasty.

Miramax 'The Adventures of Shark Boy & Lava Girl in 3-D' 1 out of 5 stars Director: Robert Rodriguez Starring: Taylor Lautner, Taylor Dooley, Cayden Boyd Run time: 93 minutes Release date: June 10, 2005 Rating: PG for mild action, rude humor. See showtimes On the web Official movie site View the trailer    Trailers require Quicktime Rate "The Adventures of Shark Boy & Lava Girl"   Go see it   Make it a matinee   Wait to rent   Don't bother Voter Limit: Once per Hour View Poll Results

Children and the most forgiving parents might very well delight in this indulgent and excruciating exercise in family synergy, but others, namely anyone not related to Rodriguez, will be left flabbergasted as to how it merited space on a movie screen. Without the 3-D gimmick — which I am convinced is a deliberate device to make people go blind — it would hardly pass as television filler; this "Shark" would be dead in the water.

So there's a boy who's half shark, because he was raised by talking sharks. And there's a girl who has pink fiery hair and can spew molten lava from her hand for reasons immediately forgotten. Max, a fourth-grader with a Macaulay Culkin mug, dreamed up these vaguely superheroish characters, who sport cheap rubber suits, yet insists they really exist. No one's buying it. Until, that is, Shark Boy and Lava Girl smash into his classroom and swoop him away in a shark-shaped rocket that takes the trio to Planet Drool.

That's right. Planet Drool.

There, an arbitrary mash of kindergarten-level escapades unfurl in a sugar-rush spasm, as the kids confront such stunningly original people and places as evil Mr. Electric (George Lopez, doing what he can), the Ice Princess, Mount Neverest and, oh my, the Land of Milk and Cookies. (Milk and cookies? Is this 1952?)

Most of "Shark Boy's" action plays in primitive, paper-glasses-style 3-D. At those parts, the directive "GLASSES ON" flashes across the screen. This is not necessary. The real cue is when the screen goes a gunky grayish-purple and your eyes start screaming in agony. 3-D: three times the pain.

Shot in Rodriguez's famed all-digital mode with green screens and animated scenery, the movie plays like a cartoon in convulsions. The effects are pretty cheesy, with nods to Ray Harryhausen and Dal’, who also created from the discursive, incoherent palette of his dreams. The movie has no inner logic, except the sidewinding nonsense of a child's dreams, and it is far too slapdash and shapeless to exert soul or feeling.

"Shark Boy and Lava Girl" offers all the hollow clank and crunch of Rodriguez's "Spy Kids 3-D" and none of the zippy smarts of the original "Spy Kids." Come to think of it, kids might reject the movie, given that they can find twice the wit and sophistication on the Cartoon Network at all hours of the day. I'm all for families bonding through creative projects and encouraging children to chase their dreams. But unless you're, oh, the Jackson Five, sharing the affair for $8 a head seems more than a mite cynical. Just remember: It's not the kid's fault.