The Adventures of Shark Boy & Lava Girl in 3-D

One of the characters in "The Adventures of Shark Boy & Lava Girl in 3-D" refers to the action onscreen as being "like a bad dream." Truer words were never spoken.

This imaginative but silly and headache-inducing adventure film was created largely by Racer Maximillian Rodriguez, the young son of filmmaker Robert Rodriguez. And it should have been left in his subconscious.

Instead, Papa Rodriguez decided to make it into a full-length feature, fleshing out the characters and situations, with help from his other children. Unfortunately, it doesn't have nearly the charm or the coherence of his "Spy Kids" movies, which had pretty much run out of steam by No. 3.

In this heavily fictionalized version of Racer Max's superhero fantasies, he's a picked-on schoolboy (played in the film by Cayden Boyd) who has chosen to retreat into his daydreams. And while everyone else — his classmates, his parents (David Arquette and Kristin Davis) and a sympathetic teacher (George Lopez) — tries to get him to live in the "real world," they're surprised to find that his super pals Shark Boy (Taylor Lautner) and Lava Girl (Taylor Dooley) are very real.

In fact, the duo needs Max's help to save their home world, Planet Drool, which is being threatened by the evil Mr. Electric (also played by Lopez). Once the action heads there, the film is in 3-D, which is enough to make your head explode.

Not only does the production take on the look of a video game — and a pretty chintzy one at that — it distracts from the story. Not that that's such a bad thing. The premise here gets tiresome in a hurry, and the juvenile attempts at humor just aren't very funny.

As for Boyd, he's likable enough, but the two Taylors are horribly stiff as his costumed, superpowered buddies, and Lopez's performance is not very colorful. In fact, Lopez is too low-key for the material, which, considering how over-the-top it's supposed to be, is a pretty big mistake.

Oddly, the usually irksome Arquette manages to keep things in check.

"The Adventures of Shark Boy & Lava Girl in 3-D" is rated PG for scenes of action violence (hand-to-hand combat, some mayhem and some bits of peril), and some vulgar humor (including flatulence gags and references). Running time: 94 minutes.

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