The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D


The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D is a 2005 American adventure film co-written and directed by Robert Rodriguez and originally released in the United States on June 10, 2005 by Dimension Films and Columbia Pictures. The film uses the anaglyph 3-D technology, similar to the one used in . The film stars Taylor Lautner, Taylor Dooley, Cayden Boyd, David Arquette, Kristin Davis and George Lopez. Many of the concepts and much of the story were conceived by Rodriguez's children. The special effects were done by Hybride Technologies, CafeFX, The Orphanage, Post Logic, Hydraulx, Industrial Light & Magic, R!ot Pictures, Tippett Studio, Amalgamated Pixels, Intelligent Creatures and Troublemaker Digital.
The film received negative reviews from critics with much of the criticism directed at the film's story and poor 3-D. The film also underperformed at the box office earning just $39 million in the United States and $69.4 million worldwide on a $50 million budget. A stand-alone sequel, We Can Be Heroes, will be released to Netflix in 2021, with Lautner and Dooley reprising their roles.

Plot

Max is a 10-year-old lonely child in the suburbs of Austin who creates an imaginary dream world named Planet Drool, where all of his dreams come to life. He creates two characters; Sharkboy, who was raised by sharks after losing his father at sea and became a shark-hybrid himself, and Lavagirl, who can produce fire and lava, but has trouble touching objects without setting them on fire. The two left Max to guard Planet Drool. In reality, Max's parents have little time for him, and their marriage is not going well. Max is also bullied by his fellow classmate Linus. However, he does receive friendship from Marissa, the daughter of his teacher Mr. Electricidad. After a chase, Linus steals Max's dream journal and vandalizes it. The next day, as Max attempts to retaliate, twin tornadoes form outside the school. Sharkboy and Lavagirl emerge from the tornadoes and have Max accompany them to Planet Drool, which he learns is turning bad thanks to Mr. Electric, a robot resembling Mr. Electricidad and the dreamworld's now-corrupt electrician, under the orders of an unknown mastermind.
They confront Mr. Electric in his lair, but he drops them into the Dream Graveyard, where some of Max's dreams have been dumped. They find Tobor, a robot toy that Max never finished building in the real world after being discouraged by his father. Tobor gives them a lift to other parts of the planet. The three form a friendship during their journey, but they face hardships, such as Sharkboy's anger for the oceans being frozen over, and Lavagirl's desperation to find her true purpose on Planet Drool. They are pursued by Mr. Electric and his "plughounds" across the planet. They plan to visit the Ice Princess and obtain the Crystal Heart, which can freeze time, giving them enough time to get to the center of Planet Drool and fix the dreamworld using Max's daydreaming. However, they are captured by Mr. Electric, and delivered to the mastermind, who is revealed to be Minus, a villain resembling Linus who has altered the dreamworld with Max's journal, and traps the three in a cage. Sharkboy gets annoyed by singing bubbles called LaLas and has a "shark frenzy", destroying the cage. After they escape, Max retrieves the dream journal from Minus while he is sleeping. Max informs Sharkboy that his father is alive in his book, but when Lavagirl wishes to learn what it says about her true identity, she burns the book to ash. In rage, Lavagirl asks Max why she is made out of lava, but Sharkboy tells him to let her cool down.
Max, Sharkboy, and Lavagirl eventually reach the Ice Princess, who resembles Marissa. She hands over the Crystal Heart, but they are too late to stop the corruption since the Ice Princess is the only one who can use the Crystal Heart's power, and she cannot leave her home. Afterwards, Mr. Electric seemingly kills Sharkboy by fooling him into jumping into water filled with electric eels, which are his weakness, with Lavagirl sacrificing herself by jumping into the water to retrieve him. Tobor appears and convinces Max to dream a better and unselfish dream. Just then, Sharkboy regains consciousness and races Lavagirl to a volcano to revive her. Max concludes that her purpose is as a light against the dark clouds which have engulfed Planet Drool's skies. Max gains reality warping as the Daydreamer and defeats Minus, then offers to make a better dreamworld between the two of them, to which Minus agrees.
Minus offers Mr. Electric to return to running Planet Drool, but Mr. Electric reveals that he never enjoyed doing so in the first place. He also informs Max that he made a terrible mistake of dreaming him up and flies to Earth to destroy Max while he is dreaming. Max awakens back in his classroom during the tornado storm. Mr. Electric arrives in the tornado before Max and an astonished Mr. Electricidad. Max's parents are caught in the storm as well, but are saved by Sharkboy and Lavagirl. Max gives the Crystal Heart to Marissa so she can use the Ice Princess's powers to freeze and destroy Mr. Electric. Mr. Electricidad, Linus and Max make peace with one another, and Max reunites with his parents.
Max later informs his class that Planet Drool has become a proper dreamworld once again, Sharkboy became the King of the Ocean, and Lavagirl became Queen of the Volcanoes, and as the film shows Max finally finishing Tobor, he reminds the class to "dream a better dream, and work to make it real".

Cast

Parts of the film were shot on location in Texas in September to December 2004, where Max resides and goes to school in the film. Much of the film was shot in a studio against green screen. Most of the ships, landscapes and other effects including some creatures and characters, were accomplished digitally. According to Lautner and Dooley, when filming the scene with the dream train, the front part of the train was an actual physical set piece. "The whole inside was there and when they have all the gadgets you can pull on, that was all there but everything else was a green screen," said Dooley.
Eleven visual effects companies worked on the film in order to accomplish over 1,000 visual effect shots.
Robert Rodriguez appears in the credits fourteen times, most notably as director, a producer, a screenwriter, visual effects supervisor, director of photography, editor, a camera operator, and a composer and performer. The story is credited to Racer Max Rodriguez, with additional story elements by Rebecca Rodriguez, who also wrote the lyrics for the main song, "Sharkboy and Lavagirl". Other members of the Rodriguez family can be seen in the film or were involved in the production.
Miley Cyrus had auditioned for the film with Lautner, and said it came down to her and another girl who was also auditioning; however, Cyrus then began production on Hannah Montana.

Reception

Critical response

The film holds a 19% rating on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes based on 124 reviews, with an average rating of 4.33/10. The consensus reads, "The decision to turn this kiddie fantasy into a 3-D film was a miscalculation." 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.

Box office

For its opening weekend, the film earned $12.6 million in 2,655 theaters. It was placed at number 5 at the box office, being overshadowed by Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Madagascar, , and The Longest Yard. The film was not very successful in the US, taking in $39,177,541 and was a box office bomb. However, it did manage to gross $30,248,282 overseas, for a total of $69,425,966 worldwide.

Lawsuit

The Total Nonstop Action professional wrestler Dean Roll, who trademarked the name "Shark Boy" in 1999, sued Miramax on June 8, 2005, claiming that his trademark had been infringed and demanding " money, profits and advantages wrongfully gained". In April 2007, the suit was settled for a disclosed amount of $200,000.

Soundtrack

Director Robert Rodriguez composed parts of the score himself, with contributions by composers John Debney and Graeme Revell. Green Day were reportedly set to contribute "Wake Me Up When September Ends" to the soundtrack, but Robert Rodriguez declined it.

Books

Around the time of the film's debut Rodriguez co-wrote a series of children's novels entitled Sharkboy and Lavagirl Adventures with acclaimed science fiction writer Chris Roberson. They include Book 1, The Day Dreamer, and Book 2, Return to Planet Drool, which announces that it will be continued in a third volume, Deep Sleep, which has yet to appear. They are illustrated throughout by Alex Toader, who designed characters and environments for the film and the previous Spy Kids franchise.
Jeff Jensen of Entertainment Weekly praised another book appearing around the time of the film, The Adventures of SharkBoy and LavaGirl: The Movie Storybook, as a far cry from the usual movie storybook tie-in, and also praised Alex Toader's "cartoony yet detailed" illustrations.

Future

In an interview during the 2020 Comic-Con@Home event, Rodriguez confirmed that a character in his upcoming film We Can Be Heroes is the daughter of Sharkboy and Lavagirl who has both "shark and lava powers". Taylor Dooley is confirmed to reprise her role in the film as Lavagirl. The film is scheduled to be released through Netflix.