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Neither Carmen Cortez (Alexa Vega) nor Juni Cortez (Daryl Sabara) is a Spy Kid any longer. She's now fifteen and is more of a Spy Teen. He's resigned and has struck out on his own as a private detective.  (Don't these kids go to school?)  Juni is summoned back into the fold for an emergency. It seems that his sister has gone into a virtual reality video game to prevent world domination by the Toymaker (Sylvester Stallone chewing on the scenery with great glee) and was last seen on level four. She's missing, or at least her mind is. Her body is suspended in limbo at headquarters. It falls to Juni to infiltrate the game, reach the unwinnable level five, rescue his sister, shut the game down, and prevent the escape from cyberspace of the Toymaker.

What follows is a series of action set pieces, including aggressive frogs on pogo sticks, a robot battle on the moon, a spectacle of a race with whimsical vehicles, surfing on waves of lava, and a final showdown with the forces of evil. The plot is thin, the dialog minimal, the danger to the protagonists minimal, and the situations intentionally ludicrous. One redeeming plot line involves Juni's choice of his Grandfather (Ricardo Montalban) to help him in cyberspace. The Grandfather is given a virtual body and outstanding athletic abilities in the virtual world. I found their evolving relationship touching, and the knowledge that Montalban is confined to a wheel chair in pain added to the poignancy of those scenes. Montalban also has been given the film's wittiest lines, satirizing his commercials for Chrysler and paraphrasing a line from The Wrath of Khan.

The film does include some unexpected cameos, including Elijah Wood, George Clooney, and Salma Hayek as Cesca Giggles (Gerti Giggles mom - Girti is reprised by Emily Osment), and all of Rodriguez's Spy Kids characters make very brief appearances: Antonio Banderas as Gregorio Cortez, Carla Gugino Ingrid Cortez, Holland Taylor as Grandmother, Cheech Marin as Felix Gumm, Danny Trejo as Machete, Alan Cumming as Fegan Floop, Tony Shalhoub as Alexander Minion, Steve Buscemi as Romero, and Bill Paxton as Dinky Winks. Just don't expect considerable screen time for these players, they are strictly window dressing.  Even Alexa Vega is held back until the third act. This is foremost Daryl Sabara's film. Fans should sit through the closing credits for a couple of bloopers and a look at the two young stars' audition tapes.

Video: How Does The Disc Look?

The film's theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1 is presented in anamorphic video... twice. There's a 3-D version on one disc and a 2-D version on a second disc. The 3-D is created through the use of the old red-blue color filter trick - anaglyph - that was introduced decades ago in comic books. There are some helpful tools provided on the disc to guide you through the adjustment of your display's color tint and saturation. (I was pleased to find that the color temperature of my display was already optimized for the effect and no adjustment was required. )  I have to admit that before I spun the disc, I was very skeptical. The colors produced by the phosphors found on various CRT-based televisions and projectors, or the color filters or wheels found on fixed pixel front projectors, are not the same from manufacturer to manufacturer. With any mismatch between the red or the blue (with a hint of green) filter in the four supplied anaglyph glasses and the color rendition of my display, I expected ghosting and fringing and an unconvincing simulation of 3-D. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the 3-D effect exceeded my expectations (but since my expectations were quite low, this is faint praise).

The illusion of depth was actually pretty good, and for relatively static images that are suspended in space within a few feet of my eyes, very good. (I can't be sure if my eight-foot wide screen viewed at an angle in excess of forty degrees made the illusion that much more effective. )  Dynamic scenes are reasonable, but every once in a while, I found images to be displaced fore and aft; perhaps it was my brain not keeping up. The blue filter over my right eye worked perfectly, providing an image that was free from ghosts; the left eye's portion of the depth information was completely suppressed by that filter. Not so with the red filter over my left eye. For many scenes, no "leakage" from the right eye's depth information was visible. For others, there was considerable ghosting. The worst case is the scene in which Juni bumps into a life token with a red cross on it; there's severe ghosting alongside that cross. I'm at a loss to explain why the ghosting changes from sequence to sequence or scene to scene.

As you would expect, the color filters severely distort the color accuracy of the images. I found that red dominated, causing everything to assume an annoying reddish cast. Whites appear to be a pastel purple. During the scenes external to the game, the viewer is prompted to remove the glasses for a conventional 2-D presentation. In those scenes, color accuracy is excellent with natural flesh tones. But perhaps to facilitate the 3-D images, the images are noticeably soft. Fine textures, small object detail, and skin imperfections are all suppressed. Edge halos, however, are completely absent. I also noticed that the shutter was set very fast during taping; this has the effect of eliminating movement-based smearing and may have been required to create the 3-D effect. The result is a bit of strobing when objects move quickly through the frame. I didn't notice any compression artifacts.

Here's a gift for electronic manufacturers, DVD producers, and film studios. HD-DVD is on the way. If the new media is designed to support both the 1080 and 720 formats, and if future displays can be designed to display the 720p60 format in native mode (few now support 720p in its native mode since 720p requires a higher scan rate that increases the cost of manufacturing), then real, full color 3-D images might be possible. Since 720p60 produces 60 progressive frames per second and film is only 24 frames per second, after conventional 3:2 pulldown there are still twice as many frames as needed. So how about alternating left and right eye images and have the viewer wear synchronized, shuttered LCD glasses?  True color would be maintained. The only disadvantage would be a reduction in image brightness, which also occurs with anaglyph. Since this film was shot with two imagers, one for each eye, a polarized presentation in true color is possible in suitably equipped theaters. Similarly, we might see a re-release some day in true color 3-D on such an HD-DVD.

The second disc with the exclusively 2-D presentation is similar to the 2-D images on the 3-D disc but with what I think I observed as the slightest hint of more detail. Alas, halos are more visible, as well. The images here remain softer than the images found on Rodriguez's recent release of Once Upon a Time in Mexico, which like Spy Kids 3-D, was shot in 1080p24 high definition video. Watching the film for a second time in 2-D was a revelation. The CGI in the game world is a riot of color and full of ingenious constructs that I simply hadn't noticed or appreciated in the 3-D version. Children may be enthralled with the 3-D effects with objects frequently threatening your nose, but adults will appreciate the imaginative 2-D world Rodriguez created for his film.

Audio: How Does The Disc Sound?

The Dolby Digital 5.1 track is terrific. It decodes perfectly with EX enabled, sending appropriately located discrete sounds to each of the three very active surround channels. Sound effects are dynamic and visceral. During the robot battle, a bass line in the score thumped away at my abdomen, felt as well as heard. A serious subwoofer will be required to fully appreciate the depths the audio reaches. The simulated acoustic instruments (created with a sampler) in the orchestral portion of Robert Rodriguez's score are presented with pleasing fidelity. The scant dialog is always crystal clear.

Alternate language tracks are in French and Spanish. Subtitles are available in Spanish and English, for which Closed Captions are also offered.

Supplements: What Goodies Are There?

The supplements are spread across the two discs, and some of the extras are duplicated. Almost all are shown in non-anamorphic widescreen or full screen. Both discs contain a feature length audio commentary by Robert Rodriguez. This man loves to talk and I love to listen to him. He riffs on technology, high definition, special effects, green screen, shooting in 3-D, virtual sets, CGI, video games, composing, compositing, and rarely having his players on the set at the same time. He has so much to say that the intake of air required to continue to talk (and to breathe) is edited out of his commentary to make room for more comments. Well done.  

On disc one we find his traditional Ten Minute Film School (9:53) in which Rodriguez exposes just how much green screen work was done to make this film. Taking a cue from George Lucas, Spy Kids 3-D is essentially as virtual as the games it portrays. Rodriguez takes us though the process and we get to see many of the sequences being taped. Interesting and informative. Rodriguez finds that he has a bit of time to spare toward the end of this supplement, so he gives us a few hints on how to make our home movies interesting.  

There is a nice behind the scenes featurette entitled The Making of Spy Kids 3-D (21:14). It's here that Rodriguez drops a hint of an approach that may be the source of my disappointment with the film, "Even the most mundane shots are more interesting in 3-D." While that may be true, don't expect 3-D to sustain the film. But I digress. This featurette gives voice to many of the principle players and the director as they explain the nature of the plot and how much they enjoyed the filming experience. More interesting is the brief history of 3-D film, although the emphasis was on the tackier examples of the technique. No mention was made, for example, of Alfred Hitchcock's Dial 'M' for Murder in its original 3-D. The short then takes us into the more technical, CGI and 3-D. Then stunts. The featurette is a pleasant blend of fluff and genuinely interesting behind the scenes information.  

The Effects of the Game (6:42) exposes more of how the special effects were accomplished, how the CGI was integrated, and how the compositing of the characters was performed. This feature is without dialog. It shows how many of the effects were accomplished by displaying a rough effect or original footage, then demonstrates how layering, color correction, and compositing yielded the final result. This is a clever presentation that reveals details in an entertaining manner. Making Trax with Alexa Vega (1:01) is a very short tape of the young actress trying to get serious in front of the microphone. She doesn't quite make it. Surfing and Stunts (Multi Angle) (1:08) permits the viewer to switch among the storyboards, rough computer animation, and finished film for the surfing on lava sequence. And Big Dink, Little Dink (1:41) features Bill Paxton and an extemporaneous appearance by his son in the film. Lose your 3-D glasses or want to order more?  A phone number is provided.

Alexa Vega in Concert features three musical numbers by the actress. I don't follow popular music - is she trying to get a music career jump-started?  You'll also find a 3-D Set Top Game in which you get to steer through obstacles in a reproduction of the race found on the film. The rest of the extras are on disc two. The game is duplicated in 2-D on disc two; the commentary and the Alexa Vega in Concert feature are also duplicated.

Sneak Peeks offers trailers for the spring theatrical release of Ella Enchanted, another fairly tale starring Anne Hathaway (2.31), Spy Kids (1:41), Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams (1:52), the Spy Kids online store, the Spy Kids video game (0:33), Brighter Child CD-ROM (0:33), a promo for the film's soundtrack (0:33), and the home releases of Brother Bear (2:17) and Haunted Mansion (1:18). The brief 84-minute feature is organized into twenty-nine chapters.

DVD-ROM Exclusives: What do you get when you pop the disc in your PC?

There are no ROM extras on the disc.

Parting Thoughts