SPY KIDS 3-D: GAME OVER

SPY KIDS 3-D: GAME OVER. Robert Rodriguez, dir., script, co-prod., editor, visual effects supervisor, music, production design, co-cinematographer. USA: Dimension Films, Los Hooligans Productions, Troublemaker Studios (prod.) / Dimension Films (USA dist.), 2003.

Children's film, 3rd in series (see in this Category, SPY KIDS—and below, the Caution). The villainous Toymaker schemes to control the future by controlling kids through a VR video game. The setting of SK3-D is partly at the top-secret HQ of the OSS but mostly inside the video game. The interior of the very conspicuous OSS has an equally conspicuous hexagon motif: possibly a visual joke on this common shape in SF film (e.g., 2001, A NEW HOPE). The VR game features a vehicular race out of TRON and robot fights out of TRON (1982) and ROBOT JOX. As in the classic Star Trek episode "The Menagerie," illusion can allow a cripple a life of free movement and power: in the VR game world in SK3-D, Grandfather is either a really big macho guy, or a cyborg. There are also mildly threatening giant robots—that look very much like the robot in THE IRON GIANT—that escape into the real world. (All films mentioned listed in this section.) CAUTION: Unlike the original film, this one shouldn't be seen by adults unaccompanied by a child—and a child too young to have seen 3-D or the films mentioned.