George Clooney, Salma Hayek, Antonio Banderas, Steve Buscemi, and Tony Shaloub.  They would be as pretty good cast for any movie but they are just the cameos.  Yes, it's the latest installment in the hugely successful Spy Kids series.    In the new edition, Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over, the spy kids, Carmen & Juni (Alexa Vega & Daryl Sabara)  return to save the world once again.  Sylvester Stallone, a.k.a. The Toymaker, has a nefarious plot to trap the world's teenagers in a new computer game. He has already trapped Carmen so Juni is brought out of "retirement" to save her.  He recruits his grandfather (Ricardo Montalban) to help.  Montalban has a score to settle since it was The Toymaker who put him in a wheelchair.  In the computer game, Montalban has a new muscular body and walks around a la Captain Pike in The Menagerie.
     In this film, Juni gets most of the screen time along with a collection of other kids who also playing the game. Juni is Ok but I missed Carmen, who doesn't appear until halfway through the movie.  Their hapless parents (Antonio Banderas & Carla Gugino) don't appear until the last 5 minutes of the movie.  Montalban is great as always and even gets to say a line about "Corinthian leather." This is a bit of a comeback movie for Stallone. He hasn't had too many hits lately unless you count his voiceover in Antz.     
     This is Spy Kids 3-D, so you wear old-style red and blue glasses for the movie.  The special effects are very well done in the tradition of 50's 3-D movies. The director, Robert Rodriguez, never misses an opportunity for some large object to come shooting out of the screen at the audience.  These special effects just add to what is an amusing and entertaining sequel to the first two Spy Kids movies.  As my faithful readers know, I am not an afficianado of the kid flick but I have to say that the Spy Kids movies hold my interest much more than any Disney or Pixar movie.  Rodriguez, who wrote and directed all three films, really knows how to make a family film, i.e., a film that could be enjoyed by any member of the family.  There are even some funny out-takes, particularly one of George Clooney who plays the President,  in the final credits of Spy Kids 3-D so stick around.
     I still haven't seen the first Spy Kids movie and I only saw number two on a plane but I'm a believer. Unlike Finding Nemo or Ice Age, I was not looking at my watch every 5 minutes wondering when the end was coming.  It's fun for the whole family, even me.