Category: Spy Kids 3D

Film Review: ‘Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over’

Craig / / 2003, Spy Kids 3D
Film Review: ‘Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over’
Mon Jul 21,12:33 AM ET

By Sheri Linden

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – The quaint subgenre of 3-D cinema gets a dazzling dust-off with the third installment of Robert Rodriguez‘s terrific “Spy Kids” films, a bracing plunge into virtual reality that will introduce a new generation to the wonders of those magically goofy red-and-blue anaglyph glasses.

As with its two predecessors, “Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over” bears a wealth of imaginative riches and a signature mix of outre personalities and gadgets.

Still, fans of the first two films might find the human element somewhat lacking; though the gang’s all back, most of the adult actors are onscreen only for cameos, including the toplined Antonio Banderas and Carla Gugino.

The film really belongs to 11-year-old Daryl Sabara as Juni, the youngest of the daring Cortez family, and mainly to the CG effects. That makes sense given that Rodriguez, who handles a multitude of technical and creative chores on his movies, conceived of the film less as a sequel than as a journey into three-dimensional filmmaking.

The first major U.S. theatrical release to use 3-D since 1991’s “Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare,” “Game Over” utilizes the lightweight, high-resolution cameras James Cameron and Pace Technologies developed to shoot his documentary “Ghosts of the Abyss.”

Like the first two “Spy Kids” adventures, this one will appeal to children and adults alike and should, after strong play at the boxoffice that likely will top the second film’s take, have a long 2-D life on video.

Joining the regulars this time around are Sylvester Stallone, Salma Hayek, George Clooney, Elijah Wood and a quartet of talented youngsters, with the entire cast’s spirited work especially impressive considering that everybody acted in front of a green screen.

Explaining the 3-D experience to initiates in the audience is Alan Cumming, reprising his role as kids show personality/inventor Floop, in an opening sequence that makes wonderful use of layered effects via a pop-up book.

The main action finds Juni working as a PI — complete with droll, noirish voice-over — having left behind his work as a secret agent. But soon enough the OSS summons him back for a mission of supreme importance: retrieving his older sister, hacker par excellence Carmen (Alexa Vega), who is trapped in the ultimate video game, “Game Over.”

The agency had sent Carmen to destroy the game, which is a vehicle for its creator, the Toymaker (Stallone), to take over the minds of kids everywhere.

Stallone has fun with the role of the evil genius, who debates his plan for world domination with three disparate aspects of himself — one of whom has a blatantly false bald pate, a comical touch in light of the film’s super-slick visuals.

To join him on the expedition, Juni chooses his paraplegic grandpa (Ricardo Montalban) for his upper-body strength and mental agility — a nice lesson in open-mindedness that is reinforced later in the film without being heavy-handed or cloying.

Back at agency HQ, the Giggles (Mike Judge and a pigtailed Hayek) monitor the duo’s progress through the game’s five levels, while four beta testers (Ryan James Pinkston, Robert Vito, Bobby Edner and Courtney Jines) guide them through the futuristic cityscapes and abstract tableaux.

Among the challenges our heroes encounter are pogo-ing toads, monstrous iron men and various floating and flying objects that will have youngsters reaching up to grab them. Two especially effective set pieces are a breathtaking road race and a lava-surfing episode.

It isn’t until an hour into the film that Juni reaches Carmen, and just when the rest of the gang’s all here, whetting the appetite for ensemble high jinks, it’s game over.

There’s a refreshing message about revenge, relating to Grandfather’s history with the Toymaker, and a nicely nontraditional salute to the importance of family — but the latter begs the question: Where was everyone in this extended family for the last hour and a half?

Although the film’s concision stands as sharp rebuke to some of this summer’s more unwieldy actioners, it’s a letdown that most of the wacky, colorful characters don’t get to do much.

In tribute to two of the most appealing kid actors around, there are post-credits snippets of Vega and Sabara‘s screen tests for the first “Spy Kids,” way back in the 20th century.

Miramax/Dimension Films, produced by Troublemaker Studios

CAST

Gregorio Cortez: Antonio Banderas; Ingrid Cortez: Carla Gugino; Carmen Cortez: Alexa Vega; Juni Cortez: Daryl Sabara; Grandfather: Ricardo Montalban; Toymaker: Sylvester Stallone; Donnagon Giggles: Mike Judge; Cesca Giggles: Salma Hayek; Gary Giggles: Matt O’Leary; Gerti Giggles: Emily Osment; Arnold: Ryan James Pinkston; Rez: Robert Vito; Francis: Bobby Edner; Demetra: Courtney Jines.

CREDITS

Director/screenwriter/editor/director of photography/production designer: Robert Rodriguez; Producers: Elizabeth Avellan, Robert Rodriguez; Executive producers: Bob Weinstein, Harvey Weinstein; Music: Robert Rodriguez; Costume designer: Nina Proctor.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter

Yo, Toymaker: Sly Turns Evil

Craig / / 2003, Spy Kids 3D

From the Toronto Star July 20, 2003 1:00 AM

Yo, Toymaker: Sly turns evil
Spy Kids 3-D casts Stallone as villain

Sly’s kids delighted Dad, 57, is in cool film

PETER HOWELL
SPECIAL TO THE STAR

Sylvester Stallone may be best known as Rocky and Rambo, but did you know that he once earned a mere $200 in 1970 to star as a sex-crazed gigolo in the movie The Party At Kitty And Studs?

Since then the native New Yorker born Michael Sylvester Enzio Stallone (on the same day as President George W. Bush) has returned to the screen more than 50 times and recently begun oil painting in his spare time.

Stallone‘s other passion is his five children: Sage, 27, and Seargeoh, 24, with second wife Sasha Czack and Sophia, 6, Sistine, 5, and Scarlet, 1, with current wife Jennifer Flavin.

They couldn’t have been happier to hear that Dad, now 57, was cast in the new family adventure movie Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over, opening Friday. He plays the Toymaker, an evil villain looking to trap unsuspecting kids inside the world’s most complex online video game.

Need to know more about the self-proclaimed Italian Stallion? Here’s a quick guide to everything Sly.

He loves kids: “It’s great to eat peanuts off their heads,” jokes Stallone, who developed a special appreciation for his Spy Kids co-stars Daryl Sabara, 11, and Alexa Vega, 14. “It is great to be taking photos with them. My status goes up when I take my kids to grade school and I am now the Toymaker. In other words, my image has been upgraded by hanging out with (Spy Kids characters) Juni and Carmen.”

He’s not as good at video games: “I have never made it past Level 1 in my own Rocky game,” he admits. “I have been knocked out by Spiderico 35 times! I can’t get past Level 1. I said, `This is kind of like true life…’ But I watch my daughters play. My voyage into video games is pretty superficial. I get stuck on Hello, Kitty.”

He’s a good sport: Especially when other stars mimic his famous line “Yo, Adrian.”(“Robin Williams does it really well,” he says.) In Spy Kids 3-D,George Clooney does his best impersonation. “I had to figure out how to get back at George,” Stallone says. “What can I do to mock him? Should I just … be handsome?”

He plans to direct: Stallone is currently on pre-production of Rampart Scandal, a drama exploring the recently uncovered corruption in the Los Angeles Police Department. “It’s a sensitive area, a real tinder box,” he says. “So often stories like this get told 25 years down the line … and it’s like, as great as J.F.K. was, a lot of the facts had to be director-interpreted. Did it happen? Did it not happen? And there were lawsuits about that. This, everything in the script is real and it’s extraordinary.”

He’s already working on Rocky VI: “I’ve done the script. It’s called Puncher’s Chance. Now it’s just a matter of MGM, and if they want to go through with it,” he says. “Rocky movies, when they do work, are really not about boxing. They are about the story itself and how can you apply it to your everyday life. The last thing you ever lose in your life, if you’re an athlete, is your punch. That’s the way I try to live my life.”

He plans to open a casino: Stallone is a major investor in The Planet Hollywood Hotel and Casino, due to open in Las Vegas by the end of next year, promising the resort will bring a touch of Hollywood to Sin City. “[We’re planning] movie premieres, charity events, tournaments … it is not just family-oriented.”

He’s got game: “I recently got into a competition with [tennis ace] Pete Sampras to see who could throw a 16-pound medicine ball farther,” Stallone explains. “He said he could beat me any time on the tennis court in anything, so I brought a medicine ball instead of a tennis racquet. I said, `Let’s see how far you can throw this ball across the net.’

“You stand at one line and you try to throw it backward over your head and over the net. And I won. I got it about 6 feet past the net and he got it about 4 feet. Considering I am the world’s worst athlete and he is the best, I took that as being a great thing. I could be his father. It’s equivalent to me being beaten by an 85-year-old guy.”

And he’s an avid golfer: With a seven handicap, who enjoys playing 18 holes at L.A.’s Riviera Country Club in his down time. There’s just one problem — the California sun. “Night golf to me would be paradise,” Stallone says. “That’s when I’ll know I’ve gone to heaven: night golf. Eat dinner and play golf. How great would that be?”

– Craig Zablo

Will there be another “Rocky”?

Craig / / 2003, Celebs, Rocky 6, Shade, Spy Kids 3D

In the July 20, 2003 Who’s News section of USA Weekend the following appeared:

Q: Is Sylvester Stallone really working on another “Rocky” movie? Angel Moll, Bellingham, Mass.

Yes. Stallone, 57, now is writing a script that will have sensitive boxer Rocky Balboa jumping into the ring for a sixth time [it’s been a while; “Rocky V” came out in 1990]. Meanwhile, Stallone can be seen as the villain in “Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over” next weekend. The role of the baddie is a switch for the actor, one that’ll no doubt tickle his three daughters with third wife Jennifer Flavin [Sophia, 6, Sistine, 5, and Scarlet, 1]. The Los Angeles-based star, who has two older children from his first marriage, also is waiting to see whether “Shade,” an independent con-man caper he filmed with Melanie Griffith will be released.

– Craig Zablo

Stallone toys with comedy in ‘Spy Kids 3-D’

Craig / / 2003, Spy Kids 3D

Stallone toys with comedy in ‘Spy Kids 3-D’
By Andy Seiler, USA TODAY [June 19, 2003]

Sylvester Stallone admits his is not the first name that comes to mind when you think of children’s comedy.

But here he comes in Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over, opening July 25. Stallone plays The Toymaker, the latest villain up against the young hero and heroine of the popular big-screen series. As an added appeal, this final chapter in the series is shot in high-definition 3-D.

In Game Over, Stallone will not just be smashing preconceptions; he’ll be doing it several times over. The Toymaker, you see, has multiple personalities.

“This is a man who’s having all these struggles in his own brain,” Stallone says. “I’m stretching the emotional rubber band. Part of him is The Dictator, this hellbent, military, crush-them-all guy. I do a little takeoff of George C. Scott, but perhaps under the influence of a gallon of espresso. One of them is The Scientist. And one of them is The Hippie, the peace-and-love and why-can’t-we-get-along-and-let’s-join-hands-and-we-are-the-world kind of guy. He’s definitely a throwback to Haight Ashbury.”

The Toymaker also impersonates a “news reporter, kind of a Mortimer Snerd/TV-commentator type,” Stallone says.

The Toymaker has been banished to cyberspace, where he attempts to lure the unsuspecting to join him.

“And once they’re there,” Stallone says, “they’re never going back.”

Stallone knows what that feels like. After writing and starring in Rocky, the 1976 Oscar winner for best picture, he became one of the top stars in Hollywood. But a series of flops had him floundering. His most recent hit was the 1998 computer-animated Antz, for which he provided the voice of a tough worker ant. Three of his most recent movies, D-Tox, Avenging Angelo and Shade— went directly to video.

“That happens when you get involved with certain projects that become a shadow of their original conception,” says Stallone, who turns 57 on July 7. “You have to learn to roll with those punches. If you do take it personally, it’s a stigma that can stifle you in going any further with your life.”

So Stallone is grateful that innovative writer/director Robert Rodriguez has handed him a plum role in a successful series. And it’s a comedy part, which Stallone hasn’t had the chance to try (Antz aside) in more than a decade.

“It’s something that I’m never presented with,” he says frankly. “You are perceived in a certain way. People feel comfortable, and I’m no exception, in going with the safe route.” Stallone made eight movies featuring his two iconic figures, Rocky and Rambo.

Now he is taking a different road, and he’s well aware of potential pitfalls.

“I tell my friends when you’re watching Biography, always turn it off before the last half-hour,” Stallone says. “It always turns out to be a nightmare ride through career hell. That’s the part you try to edit out of your life.”

– Craig Zablo

Sly Shines On

Craig / / 2003, Spy Kids 3D

From Andy Seiler‘s article for USA Today, June 19, 2003, which profiles Sally Field, Demi Moore, and Sylvester Stallone who all appear in big summer movies.

Sylvester Stallone

Birth name: Michael Enzio Stallone
Role: The Toymaker, evil genius banished to cyberspace in “Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over” which opens July 25
Notable Awards: Starred in “Rocky” [1976], which won best picture. Several Razzie Awards for worst actor, as well as worst actor of the [20th] century.
Gumption, grit, and moxie factor: Like Rocky, Stallone‘s whole life has been a million-to-one shot.
Future Potential Based on this role: 100-to-1 shot, not bad,compared with that million-to-one shot.

“His career reminds one of Burt Reynolds,” author Boze Hadleigh says. “He was making too many movies and not paying attention to the quality. He ended up with the option of not working or working in something very alien or something schlocky. When it comes to multiple roles, I don’t think he’s exactly Peter Sellers, but at least he’s trying.” Adds Sternbergh: “It’s hard to imagine him enjoying a late career renaissance. but if he’s charming in the movie, which is not impossible, it could lead to other similar things. I think that he’s probably looking at interesting cameos.”

– Craig Zablo

Sly Happy Meals

Craig / / 2003, Spy Kids 3D

McDonald’s and Dimension Films will take Happy Meals to a whole new dimension this summer, as characters from the highly anticipated, 3-D action-packed ” Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over” movie jump from the pages of six one-of-a-kind 3-D comic books featured in McDonald’s Happy Meals. Complete with action figures, ultra-hip 3-D glasses and 3-D comic books, this exciting new Happy Meal event brings back the magic of 3-D and the page turning adventures of “Spy Kids3-D: Game Over,” releasing in theaters everywhere July 25, 2003.

Thanks to Joe Tanto and Randy from The Arnold Fan – Craig Zablo

“SPY KIDs 3D”: GAME OVER CD CARDZ

Craig / / 2003, Spy Kids 3D

The Spy Kids™ Team Up with Serious for Another Fun-Filled Adventure

New York, NY (May 2003) – Serious USA, Inc. has signed a deal with Dimension Films to create another mind-blowing set of CD Cardz – based on the highly anticipated film from director Robert Rodriguez, Spy Kids™ 3D: Game Over, which hits theaters on July 25, 2003. In a sequel to last year’s set based on Spy Kids™ 2: The Island of Lost Dreams, the new release will contain four trading card-sized CD Cardz and once again fans are taken on adventures without ever having to leave their seats! However this time the set comes in a funky gadget all of its own – a cube of individual jewel cases! Serious Spy Kids will also be delighted to discover a whole new dimension to their computer screens with 3-D glasses included in the cube and which allow kids to enjoy special 3-D sections within their Spy Kids™ 3-D: Game Over Cardz.

The Spy Kids™ 3D: Game Over CD Cardz offer hours of interactive fun and enticing visuals with each card featuring a combination of colorful characters: The Spy Kids, (Juni and Carmen Cortez); The Beta Testers; The Grown-Ups; and The Bad Guys. They are packed with dynamic 3D movie imagery and trailers, fun facts and trivia, top-secret behind-the-scenes footage, as well as exclusive email-able postcardz, wallpapers and screensavers! Altogether cool collectibles that are sure to be a hit with Spy Kids™ fans everywhere!

Vince Allen, VP of Production, Serious USA, expresses his enthusiasm over the new Spy Kids™ CD Cardz, “Working with Miramax/Dimension Films has once again proven to be an exciting and rewarding experience. The Spy Kids™ 3D: Game Over CD Cardz possess elements of intrigue, surprise and humor, (including the fun antics of the precocious Spy Kids™!) as well as a unique 3D experience – so this set of CD Cardz is certain to entertain the adventure-seeking family!”

Building on the gaming theme of the film’s storyline, users are challenged with trivia and puzzles that are key to unlocking further content and prizes. The CD Cardz also have a bilingual element to their interactivity. Through a special translator gadget, kids and parents can decide whether to navigate the CD Cardz in English or Spanish!

Spy Kids™ 3:D Game Over CD Cardz will be available late June 2003 for a suggested retail price of $14.95. Recommended for ages 8 and up.

About Serious USA, Inc.

Serious USA produces collectible, interactive CD Cardz, the latest in portable and affordable digital entertainment. With up to 75 megabytes of content, these rectangular CD-ROMs – similar in size to trading cards – are both Windows and Mac compatible and require no additional software or hardware installation. The raised groove on the underside of the Cardz allows the Card to seat neatly into the CD single grooves found in all standard CD-ROM trays. Serious has previously released major Hollywood titles including Spy Kids™ 2: The Island of Lost Dreams, Spider-Man™, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, Men in Black II, Stuart Little 2, Buffy the Vampire Slayer™, Stargate SG1, The Outer Limits, as well as diversifying into sports collections; NHL® STARZÔ. Headquartered in New York City, Serious offices are also located in London and Singapore. For more information, visit: www.serioususa.com

-The above press release was sent to me. I’ve never seen these cards before but they sound interesting.

– Craig Zablo

Sly and Harry

Craig / / 2003, Celebs, Spy Kids 3D

HARRY KNOWLES is the man behind the Ain’t It Cool News website. Over the years he has got to meet many, many stars. He’s been flown to locations to be on set during filming and he’s been wined and dined at movie premieres. Until today I’ve never really been envious. Today HARRY spent time on the set of “Spy Kids III” with SYLVESTER STALLONE! Not only did HARRY get to hang out with SLY for about five hours. but he also got to watch filming with his good buddy ROBERT RODRIGUEZ! For full details click [HERE].

– Craig Zablo

Stallone Set to Play “The Toymaker” for Robert Rodriguez

Craig / / 2003, Celebs, Spy Kids 3D

Sylvester Stallone has signed to play a villain, called the Toymaker, for “Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over” for Robert Rodriguez.

Rodriguez was quoted as saying…

“I’ve always been a big fan of Sylvester Stallone.  His larger-than-life persona will be a great addition to the ‘Spy Kids 3-D’ universe.”

“Spy Kids 3-D” is set for release next July.

I’m excited that SLY will have the opportunity to work with ANTONIO BANDERAS [again] and ROBERT RODRIGUEZ. RODRIGUEZ is an excellent director and I hope that this is just the first time that SLY teams with him!

– Craig Zablo