The game isn’t over with Spy Kids 3D: Game Over. It’s odd that a sequel would be better than its predecessor, but Spy Kids 3D is like Rocky 3. They are both better than the movies that preceeded them, and yet neither was better than the original.

Young Juni starts out and he is out of the agency, feeling bitter and powerless of the beaurocracy of the agency; odd emotions for a kid who has barely made it through puberty (or has he?). Meanwhile his sister has entered Game Over to try and thwart the Toymaker (Sylvester Stallone). Unfortunately for Juni’s sister, she is trapped in the game (Tron anybody?) and Juni needs to come back to the agency and go into the game to save his sister and stop Toymaker from coming out of the game. The first few minutes of the movie are 3D and then viewers are invited to take off the 3D glasses and put them back on when Juni enters the game which I found kind of a cool, interactive way to get viewers into the film.

<img src=”/images/reviewspykids3d.jpg” border=”0″ align=”right”>The 3D effects are of your usual 3D fare: things popping out at you, floating in mid air, etc. I like the power pill aspect of the game where Juni reaches out and grabs a bonus life seemingly from the corner of your eye. I won’t spoil any other effects, suffice to say, they didn’t waste the 3D capability. 

Stallone is great as the villain in this movie. He should go back to playing the bad guy like he did as Frankenstein in Death Race 2000; he’s good at being the nemesis.

Now for the not so good: this movie is a rehash of other movies, both a cliche of itself and Tron. It has a similar race scene as Tron, and sort of a plot which has “players” trying to get to the master brain (Toymaker), but if you’ve never seen Tron and you enjoy the premise of going inside the game literally, than you will enjoy this movie more. Spy Kids 3D ends on sort of a flat, cheesy note, but it is certainly family friendly and better than some other sequels out there right now (like T3 and Charlie’s Angels Full Throttle), so take the kids and get butter on the popcorn. Grade: B-

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