Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over (2003)

Directed by: Robert Rodriguez | 84 minutes | action, comedy, family, adventure, fantasy, science fiction | Actors: Antonio Banderas, Carla Gugino, Alexa Vega, Daryl Sabara, Ricardo Montalban, Holland Taylor, Sylvester Stallone, Mike Judge, Selma Hayek, Matt O’Leary, Emily Osment, Ryan James Pinkston, Robert Vito, Bobby Edner, Courtney Jines, Cheech Marin, Danny Trejo, Alan Cumming, Tony Shalhoub, Steve Buscemi, Bill Paxton, Taylor Momsen, George Clooney, Elijah Wood, Alejandro Rose-Garcia, Lane Turney

Deeply disappointed in the spy organization OSS, Juni spends his days as a private investigator. For a fee, he locates important items such as lost toys. Contact with the rest of the family, which still works as a spy, has been seriously diluted. He hasn’t seen his sister Carmen in over a year when he learns from the OSS that she is imprisoned at level 4 in a video game called ‘Game Over’, a game from the mysterious Toymaker played by millions of children around the world. played that thus come into his power. June must reach level 5, an almost impossible task, but only then can he stop the game, free his sister Carmen and end the Toymaker’s rule over all children who play the game.

Jun enters the game and soon learns the hard way that nothing and no one is what it seems and that the rules of the game are constantly changing. Fortunately, he gets help from his grandfather (Ricardo Montalban) who is already thirty in a wheelchair, but can run and jump in ‘Game Over’. He is also joined by the super experienced video gamers Rez (Robert Vito), Arnold (Ryan James Pinkston) and Francis (Bobby Edner), but at the same time they are also his competitors. Of course there can only be one winner.

The beginning of the film is by far the most fun when Juni, in a long leather coat, tries to hold his own as an embittered loner outside the safe environment of his family and the OSS, but most of the film is set in virtual reality. There is nothing wrong with that in itself, but the film therefore differs in a less favorable sense from its predecessors, which are especially fun because of the inventiveness of the characters, the nice crooks and the high-tech gadgets in a spy world. Here the espionage element has been completely dropped and that is a shame. The atmosphere is also grim, there is less room for humor and many problems are solved by a deus ex machina trick, such as that Juni’s grandfather saves him from tricky situations that must be at least as opaque to him, especially because he is not like June is completely versed in video games.

Nevertheless, this last part of the trilogy also has a lot of speed, has many exciting moments and everything looks great again. Robert Rodriguez has made some very entertaining films with the ‘Spy Kids’ trilogy that excel in originality and theme. The last part is slightly less than its predecessors, but still a nice ending to this series of irresistible family films.