4.4 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Sometimes the most amazing superheroes are the ones inside your dreams. So discovers ten-year-old Max, an outcast little boy who has become lost in his own fantasy world in an attempt to escape the everyday worries of dealing with parents, school bullies and no-fun summer vacations. But when Max realizes the cool characters, high-flying adventures and incredible secret powers that dwell in his imagination might be far more real than anyone is willing to believe, his whole world changes. Now, Max is blasting off on a mission to Planet Drool where Sharkboy--a kid once lost at sea and raised under the watchful fins of sharks only to become half-shark--and Lavagirl--a volcanic beauty who emits leaping flames and red-hot rocks--live in a realm of astonishing wonders, one in which the Train of Thought can whisk you off to the mouth-watering Land of Milk and Cookies. Teeming with mountainous roller coasters and violet skies, Planet Drool looks like the perfect kid paradise until Max meets up with the shocking Mr. Electric and his sidekick Minus who are trying to do away with all dreams forever. With Sharkboy and Lavagirl in trouble, only Max can guide them--by imagining every clever move of their wily escape from Mr. Electric's Lair.
Starring: Taylor Lautner, Taylor Dooley, Cayden Boyd, George Lopez, David ArquetteFamily | 100% |
Comedy | 77% |
Adventure | 51% |
Fantasy | 50% |
Imaginary | 5% |
Sci-Fi | 1% |
Action | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 MVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English, English SDH, Spanish
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Blu-ray 3D
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 2.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Note: This title is currently available only in this edition: Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over / Adventures
of Sharkboy and Lavagirl 3-D.
You have to hand it to Robert Rodriguez: most parents when confronted by their kids’ outrageous imaginations and
storytelling would most
likely listen distractedly for a moment, mutter, “That’s nice,” and then return to whatever all-consuming adult
matters needed their
attention. Rodriguez instead decided to make a movie, and The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl (originally
presented in 3-D)
plays very much like the fever dream of some mildly hyperactive seven year old, as perhaps it was. Thought up in large
by Rodriguez’s son
Racer and fashioned into a screenplay by Robert and his brother Marcel, The Adventures of Sharkboy and
Lavagirl is everything you
might think of as having sprung from the mind of a seven year old: it’s inventive, wild, colorful, slightly surreal, and it
doesn’t make one whit
of sense or have much dramatic flow or story arc. Rodriguez has continually proven himself to be one of the most
incredibly visual directors
out there, and he perhaps surprised a lot of people with how elegantly he melded that visual flair to family friendly fare
in the Spy
Kids trilogy. He rather valiantly attempts to recreate the same magic in The Adventures of Sharkboy and
Lavagirl, but as fanciful
as the film is—and it is extremely fanciful at times—it’s so haphazard and goofy that it’s almost like the film
equivalent of that viral
YouTube video of David, the little boy returning home from the dentist and still high on anesthesia, who asks wide-
eyed, “Is this real life?”
Some viewers may be asking, “Is this a real movie?”, as The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl seems more
at times to be a
Rodriguez family in-joke where the rest of us are on the outside, wondering exactly what’s going on while scratching
our heads in slight
consternation and dismay. David, the drug addled child, is a rather prescient film critic himself when he slurs, “I feel
funny” and “Is this
going to be forever?” The good news is the funny feeling and thoughts of when “The End” will finally zoom into view
ultimately do
pass, and at least in this new Blu-ray attempts to ameliorate the rampant complaints that were voiced from the original
anaglyph 3D theatrical presentation. While Rodriguez's eye popping candy colored visual aesthetic is probably better
served by the updated 3D technology on display here, the effects are still so literally "in your face" that they may cause
the very same headaches that afflicted viewers years ago.
The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl is presented on Blu-ray with both MVC (3D) and AVC (2D) encoded
1080p transfers in 1.85:1.
This new 3D rendering manages to avoid the blanching that was a major complaint in the anaglyph presentation, as
the film pops with
often magnificent color, in a crazy quilt of everything from pastels to bright primaries, and all robustly saturated and
popping very nicely. The
overall image is very nicely detailed, though Rodriguez is obviously working within the confines of green screen and a
relatively smaller budget,
so some of the CGI is purposefully fanciful rather than photorealistic. While the blending of elements is usually done
quite
seamlessly, the Blu-
ray does occasionally show the literal seams of blending live action with green screen interpolated backgrounds. Close-
ups
reveal a wealth of
fine detail, and overall the presentation here, while soft at times due to the ubiquitous CGI, is certainly heads and
shoulders better than it
evidently was theatrically.
The 3D presentation is incredibly aggressive, to the point that some more sensitive viewers may actually not be
able to handle all the visual information coming straight at them. As with Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over, my display
revealed significant crosstalk at the very corners of the frame when there were foreground objects there, but otherwise
this is a solid 3D presentation that offers really awesome depth and dimensionality. Rodriguez exploits the technology
with old time gimmicks like things being thrown at the screen, but some of the most effective moments are relatively
subtler sequences like the underwater segment where bubbles waft out toward the viewer.
The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl boasts a very aggressive lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix that is extremely immersive a lot of the time and also has abundant LFE that should please ardent audiophiles who like those floorboards to rattle. From the first moments of the film, we're literally awash in surround activity, with lots of water sounds as the origin story of Sharkboy is detailed. Throughout the film, though, a variety of quite inventive sound effects populates the surrounds with excellent consistency. The storm sequence which delivers Sharkboy and Lavagirl to Max's classroom is a riot of low end rumbling and some great panning wind effects. Later when the kids are on a kind of roller coaster on Planet Drool, we once again get some very well detailed directionality as they zoom around the frame. The film has an abundance of inventive sound effects to match its visual whimsy, and those are all presented with a lot of impact on this DTS track. Nonetheless, dialogue is clear and consistently placed forward in the mix, even in the busiest moments.
I was expecting the worst with The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl due to the many hideous reviews I had read when the film had had its theatrical exhibition, so maybe the secret with this film is lowering one's expectations. The film is certainly nowhere near as focused and consistent as Rodriguez's Spy Kids films, which managed to blend his unique sensibilities within a family friendly framework, but that said this is hardly as bad as some critics made it out to be. Younger kids will probably be entranced by the weird and wacky goings-on on Planet Drool, and the film's message, while none too subtle, is a salient one for kids who must manage to find a way to make their dreams a reality. This new 3D presentation is one of the most relentlessly aggressive in recent memory, so much so that some viewers may actually not be able to handle it. But for those with strong eyes, and for families with young kids especially, it comes Recommended.
(Still not reliable for this title)
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