Filmtracks Traffic Rank: #722
Written 9/17/03, Revised 3/12/09
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Buy it... if you think that synthetic video game music in analog is still
cool and you want to hear that sound beefed up with a digitally altered
orchestra.
Avoid it... if the parts of the previous Spy Kids scores that you
enjoyed the most were those of orchestral bombast by John Debney.
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| Rodriguez |
Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over: (Robert Rodriguez) With the child
stars of the series quickly growing out of their roles, the Spy Kids concept
was destined to end as a trilogy in 2003. With this in mind, director Robert
Rodriguez delayed his production of Once Upon a Time in Mexico in order to
crank out his third installment to the Spy Kids franchise in record time. He
continued to expand upon the use of the series to convey his ethical beliefs
regarding family and loyalty. This time, a malevolent toymaker, performed with zeal
by Sylvester Stallone, has an insidious plan to take over all the kids in the world
by trapping their minds in their video games, and our favorite Cortez family has to
play the game itself to free a trapped member. The twist on the film is its use of
3-D imagery during video game sequences that make up the latter half of the film.
Critically, the film fared poorly compared to the first two, with the 3-D elements
considered blurry and badly rendered in their colors. Nevertheless, the film was
once again meant as silly fun, with performances by Antonio Banderas and Salma
Hayek (the El Mariachi favorites), Steve Buscemi, Alan Cumming, George
Clooney, Bill Paxton, Ricardo Montalban (who makes cute references to his old car
commercial performances) and, of course, Stallone (who plays four roles in the
film, sometimes all in the same frame). Musically, the series had been a
collaborative effort in its first two scores, with veteran project-saver John
Debney entering both productions to inject some orchestral backbone to material
that was often written or conceived of by Rodriguez. Unlike those previous two
scores, however, Spy Kids 3-D is a solo Rodriguez effort, again utilizing
the Texas symphonic ensemble assembled specifically for the previous entry (and
accepting, along with it, a few blatant performance errors). The director had
proven with his concurrent effort for Once Upon a Time in Mexico that he is
capable of providing a rousing electronic and orchestral music for his films.
Unlike that score, though, Spy Kids 3-D sounds as though it is completely
rendered digitally, minimizing the role of the orchestra and playing towards the
video game aspect of the story with predictably cheesy results.
For some reason, Rodriguez's music for
Spy Kids 3-D suffers
from the same cloudy vision as the film itself. The score is a hybrid sound of
classic video game synthetics in analog (and seemingly mono constructed) and
digitally altered orchestral passages. The occasional electric guitar adds some
excitement to mix with its whipping up of several frenzies in action cues. The
video game elements, however, dominate the
Spy Kids 3-D score, with simple,
staccato rhythms and electronic keyboarding from yesteryear occupying many, if not
all of the scenes taking place within the video game. It's a nice tip of the hat to
that genre of music, but it falls considerably short of being readily listenable,
as the action music in the previous scores had been. Rodriguez pens a heroic theme
that is a variant of Danny Elfman's
Batman identity, and yet the digital
performances of that theme restrain its potential considerably. He also brings back
a cascading motif from his previous score (along with the original Cortez family
theme from the first film) for continuity. With the comical nature of the story
comes some unfortunate carnival atmosphere, especially for Stallone's music
box-like theme gone awry. The overall combination of electric guitar ripping action
cues and cutesy comedy relief causes the score to become a muddled and confused
listening experience. One can't help but wonder if time constraints and/or money
were an issue for the less ebullient Rodriguez on this one (given the film's rapid
rollout). The number of songs continues to increase, with the young female lead of
the series, Alexa Vega, performing in all of the songs and remixes for
Spy Kids
3-D. The opening number, "Game Over," complete with Stallone's announcement
and a more mature voice from Vega than heard before, is the highlight of the album.
Given the Hispanic influence in the series, it's not surprising to hear a
Mariachi-like Latin touch in the song, and with the success of his music for
Once Upon a Time in Mexico, it's easy to ponder how the
Spy Kids
scores would be improved with a slightly more pronounced ethnic edge. The theme
from this song does indeed inform the score, adding basic continuity. Overall, this
third score plays like a 3-D film without the glasses, blurred at the edges and a
potential headache if you pay too much attention to it.
** @Amazon.com: CD or
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