The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl (2005)

Such a frustrating disappointment

hyped garbage

It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

It has a decent story, the visuals can look decent at times (when Lavagirl comes out of the volcano.) The CG may not be good, but watch food fight, and then watch this. You tell me which has better CG. The voice acting is pretty good. The characters are good. Taylor Lautner sings (that´s a good thing right? yes.) And most importantly, the message of pursue your goals even when people are putting you down.

My five year old has watched this ten times already.. The first two times I was entertained but now it has worn on me.. I asked him the other day how many more times must we watch this and he said 100. There's a message that is pushed throughout the filmI'm not sure why the reviews are so bad.

I did like the ongoing message on the importance of dreams and the kids are sincere, but this is critically injured by the 3-D capture process, with only the aesthetic otherworldly sci-fi background offering a pleasing-to-the-eye backdrop for the action. Cayden Boyd is full of imagination and a diary he carries offers two distinct characters, superheroes Lavagirl (Taylor Dooley) and Sharkboy (Taylor Lautner) which schoolteacher George Lopez discounts as he feels the boy should make the effort to embrace reality and make real friends. There is a bully played by Jacob Divich who makes Boyd's life miserable. A make- believe mission sparked by Boyd's dreams manifests itself with Lavagirl and Sharkboy show up in his classroom needing his help to save their universe from a serious threat... Mr Electric and Minus, both resembling Boyd's supposed greatest nemeses in the teacher that wants him to invest in the real world and the bullying kid who keeps trying to grab the diary and destroy it. Mr Electric wants to use his light plug terriers to shock and maim when he isn't swinging his own cord- plug bolt-shockers in his attempts to put an end to the dreams of Boyd and his made-up heroes. Soon Divich is revealed to be using Boyd's diary to warp the dreams and make things especially difficult. The power of imagination and what dreams can create isn't totally lost on me in this film but the animation of the live action is distractingly impeded by lousy capture process undermining what visual splendor exists in the starry and planetary space occupying the background. David Arquette and Kristen Davis are Boyd's parents...they have this weird scene with a tornado towards the end which involves Sharkboy and Lavagirl rescuing them. Even Lopez's daughter is imagined as a ice princess who has a crystal needed to help defeat Mr Electric. The film emphasizes the troubles of Lavagirl dealing with hot lava, Sharkboy trying to contain his anger, and Boyd summoning the ability to daydream so he can lend a hand to the heroes. A lot of heart in the direction can't compensate for ill-advised decision to shoot using a process that doesn't translate well to the smaller screen without special glasses.

Ugh, I found it to be a really really stupid movie, I'm sorry but I don't like this movie at all, it's one of my worst. I know a lot of people like it and that's fine, but I hated it. Yes, I know it's for children, but the thing is, it isn't even dumb fun to me, and while I don't expect too much for a kids movie, this is so stupid I feel as if it talks down to them, obviously the director had good intentions which is the only good thing I can say, and the scene with Linus' bad acting in the line "Send him to the principals office and have him expelled". Apart from that, this movie was boring, it had eye straining with bad CGI, stupid story, dull characters, cringing jokes and bad acting. The song dream also sucks, it is so cringing bad and the dancing is a no no, the singing is... oh god...Okay, with it's horrible CGI visuals, which I know is Roberts trademark style but it's way too gimmicky and it doesn't mean I have to like it, though I liked it on the original Spy Kids, which is a way better movie than this. The colours in this movie hurt my eyes so much and the wacky and awkward movements don't help. The characters do the stupidest things, even though Lavagirl was aware she would burn things she holds the journal and this movie just keeps on continuing... ugh... The burning of Lavagirl is very inconsistent as well. I could point out all the problems I have but this should briefly cover my thoughts on this enough.I might be nitpicking on this movie at some points and yeah it's a dumb kids movie that doesn't age well for many, but even as a kid, I didn't like this. I loved Spy Kids so much I might have expected too much from this. As I said, if you like it, that's cool, that doesn't mean you're stupid or anything, but for me, I'm putting this movie at #3 or #2 worst in my worst movie list, it's not the most frustrating thing ever and it's more like groaning, but the quality and acting is bad so...