The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl in 3-D

The parents, teacher and classmates of an imaginative boy (Cayden Boyd) deride him for claiming his tales about two adolescent superheroes are true—and then Shark Boy and Lava Girl (Taylor Lautner and Taylor Dooley) show up in person seeking his help. Writer-director Robert Rodriguez was on to something, basing his script on tales concocted by his 7-year-old son Racer Max; the story has flashes of the playful whimsy of a bright kid making things up as he goes along. But Rodriguez wastes time with the same terrible 3-D that blighted his last Spy Kids movie, with the red and blue lenses that cause raging headaches and turn everything into purple sludge. Rodriguez’s time would have been better spent teaching his inexperienced child actors not to deliver their lines in a flat and lifeless monotone.