The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl
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The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl is a 2005 action-adventure/family movie directed and written by Robert Rodriguez (known for Sin City as well as the Spy Kids franchise). The film stars Taylor Lautner (who would later play Jacob in the Twilight Saga), Taylor Dooley, Cayden Boyd, Jacob Davich, George Lopez and Sasha Pieterse. The movie was created as a gift for Robert Rodriguez's son, Racer Max Rodriguez. His sons were also in the movie as cameos. The film was released on June 10, 2005 and received mixed-to-negative reviews from both critics and audiences. Much like the Spy Kids franchise, the movie later received a cult following.
Plot
A boy named Max (Cayden Boyd) has a wild imagination, and he dreams of two imaginary friends named Sharkboy (Taylor Lautner) and Lavagirl (Taylor Dooley) and a planet known as "Planet Drool". Some of his dreams are so powerful that they can actually come to life. His classmates, except for a girl named Marissa (Sasha Pieterse), don't believe him, especially a kid named Linus (Jacob Davich) who bullies him mercilessly for it, but one day on a stormy weather, his imaginary friends crash into school, recruiting him to help them on a mission to save Planet Drool from The Darkness and the corrupted Mr. Electric (George Lopez).
Why It's A Nightmare
- An unoriginal story about the film’s main protagonist, Max, who is nothing more than a bullied kid who's classmates and parents do not believe that dreams come to life. He also joins Sharkboy and Lavagirl, his dream characters and goes to a different planet which is extremely unoriginal. As it's already been done countless times before is some already mediocre films like Mars Needs Moms and Life (2017), as well as some much better movies such as mh:greatestmovies:Alien and the Star Wars franchise, although this is justified since this film was based on Robert Rodriguez's son's dreams.
- Awful CGI and green-screen effects, which are either laughably bad or downright terrifying (this film came out after The Lord of the Rings trilogy), especially for 2005 standards, and there's also instances of copy and pasting, like Mr, Electric's "dogs" and they also use the same splatter effect and the splatter effect looks exactly like the ones from Foodfight!.
- Bad acting, with our three main characters being wooden, but childish with actors Jacob Davich and George Lopez being over the top.
- Planet Drool is just a plain dream-like Candy Land-esque planet with the earth’s dream counterparts.
- Some of the characters are unlikable and are bland American stereotypes.
- Max, while likable, is a bullied protagonist who doesn't want to go to school because his class made fun of him and has a short temper to those who bullied him.
- Sharkboy is rude and immature for most of the movie, who makes Jacob Black from the Twilight film series look like an amateur.
- Lavagirl is incredibly a bland "strong independent girl" stereotype as she can be.
- She is also extremely annoying, and gets mad at Max for unfair reasons. It is never explained how she came to life when Lavagirl accidentally burned Max's dream journal, because of her lava abilities.
- Linus/Minus is a generic middle school bully who has no personality or character development where he makes fun of Max over his dream journal and hopes he pretends that he doesn't exist and wants to "burst" him with "bubbles". He even steals his dream journal and ruin it as a "revised edition". He also acts as a selfish liar who wants to keep his troubles hidden by getting Max expelled at the principal's office.
- He is no better as Minus, as he tries to take over planet Drool in order ruin Max's life and nothing else.
- After Max comforted him, he is very useless to stop a traitorous Mr. Electric.
- Mr. Electricidad is a nasty elementary teacher, because in one scene tells Max and Linus to go to the principal's office, when it should only be Linus because he ruined Max's dream journal. He is also an hypocrite and he suggests Max to make friends with somebody else, but doesn't want him to approach his daughter Marissa. He is almost a carbon copy of Nobita's teacher in Doraemon.
- Mr. Electric, Mr. Electricidad's dream counterpart being a villain in Max's world makes no sense whatsoever. He is a weak villain when he is only defeated by Marissa using her dream counterpart's Crystal Heart. He has some bad electricity puns just like Mr. Freeze from Batman and Robin. His design and powers are unoriginal as Electric looks like a knock-off of Captain America villain, Armin Zola with the screen of his face and his powers only just electricity and tornadoes.
- Max's classmates (except for Marissa) are outright hateful, one-dimensional, and unlikeable who throw things at Max and chase him since they don't believe that dreams are real.
- Some scenes are just plain stupid, such as the scene where Mr. Electric farts on one of his robotic minions.
- Lazy pacing especially like how Lavagirl has to save Sharkboy in the water which led her to lose her Lava energy, while Max monologues on mourning her.
- Besides the CGI, it has cheap production values such as Max’s house is near to his school instead of being a little far away.
- The “darkness” is just a plain shadowy cloud which is never explained of what it will do.
- Terrible and laughable dialogue, such as Max's line "Linus took my journal!" and "He ruined my dream journal!". Along with Linus's line "I did not! Mr. Electric, send him to the principal's office and have him expelled!"
- Has some unfunny humor that tries to appeal to kids.
- At times, there's outright creepy imagery, such as Lavagirl transforming into a lava puddle and her head turning around in a 360 degree or Tobor who's a disembodied robot face, Minus's big head, or Lavagirl staring at Max telling him to dream.
- Boring fight scenes like Max fighting Minus while Sharkboy and Lavagirl do absolutely nothing about defeating Mr Electric but just watch Marissa defeat him.
Redeeming Qualities
- Despite what it says, Max and Marissa are likable characters.
- Mr. Electricidad, despite being an unlikable teacher, can also be likable at some times and shows that he isn't willing to tolerate bullying, like when he reprimands Linus/Minus for picking on Max.
- The movie was created as a birthday present for Rodriguez's son, so you can't be too harsh on something that was specially made for someone.
- Minus/Linus's performance and delivery is so over the top it's entertaining and hilarious.
- The film's message that "you need to solve your problems in the real world" is very nice.
- ”HE RUINED MY DREAM JOURNAL!!”
- Depending on your View, the movie actually does a good job about how dreams look like. Because of how weird it is.
Reception
The Adventures of Sharkbot and Lavagirl received negative reviews from critics with much of the criticism directed at the film's story and poor 3-D, while the visual aspects and performances received some praise. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a score of 20% based on 123 reviews. The site's consensus states "The decision to turn this kiddie fantasy into a 3-D film was a miscalculation." It also has a 33% audience score. On IDMb, the film has an average rating of 3.6/10. Roger Ebert gave the film 2 out of 4 stars and agreed with the other criticisms in which the 3-D process used was distracting and muted the colors, thus, he believes, "spoiling" much of the film and that the film would look more visually appealing when released in the home media market.
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