To paraphrase the well-known legend (and subsequent meme), inside of Robert Rodriguez there are two wolves. One is the architect of splashy R-rated genre films including Desperado and Sin City, while the other lends his undoubted talents to banal family fare, such as Spy Kids and We Can Be Heroes.
The aforementioned titles were all hugely successful in their own right, but when the filmmaker gets either formula wrong, we end up with absolute travesties like The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D. As he tends to do, Rodriguez had his fingers in virtually ever pie of the production, being named no less than 14 times in the credits for a variety of behind the scenes roles.
However, the visual effects on display are a diabolical eyesore, and comfortably the worst part of a film that was hardly stellar to begin with. A mind-boggling 11 VFX companies were involved in cobbling together Sharkboy and Lavagirl, which is a damning indictment for throwing as much sh*t as humanly possible at the wall, only to be shocked when it grimly slides down to the floor and makes a mess.
It’s a family-friendly fantasy at the end of the day, so maybe we shouldn’t get too harsh, even if the critics were. A 20% Rotten Tomatoes score, 30% user rating, and $72 million box office gross on a $50 million budget makes it clear that nobody was particularly impressed with the would-be whimsical adventure, and don’t even get us started on the shoddy 3D post-conversion.
And yet, The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl has been playing like gangbusters on Netflix this week, having become a Top 10 hit in the United Kingdom per FlixPatrol, despite providing 93 minutes of excruciating “entertainment” that subscribers will never get back.
