The Adventures of Sharkboy & Lavagirl in 3-D

Robert Rodriguez’s charmingly low-tech fantasy, similar to his Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over and written with his son, Racer, forsakes obvious 3-D effects for puns and literalized metaphors–a Stream of Consciousness flowing through a land of milk and giant cookies, a Train of Thought that keeps jumping off its tracks, a thundering brainstorm. They’re all located on the planet Drool, where the imaginative kid hero (Cayden Boyd) accompanies the title characters on their quest to defeat Mr. Electricity (George Lopez), a dreamlike version of the boy’s bossy grade school teacher. This gets a bit preachy in its defense of imagination, but its homemade, anticorporate spirit–Rodriguez’s trump card ever since El mariachi–gives it energy and grit. PG, 94 min. Reviewed this week in Section 1. Century 12 and CineArts 6, Chatham 14, Crown Village 18, Ford City, Gardens 7-13, Lake, Lawndale, Norridge, River East 21, 62nd & Western, Webster Place.

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