3-D movies have, since their inception in the '50s, always looked cheap. The point in making a 3-D film has always been to let the audience enjoy the novelty of the experience rather than to cook up an engaging story. Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over fits that model perfectly. The story, little more than a mishmash of Tron and The Matrix, is nothing more than a solid excuse to set up the 3-D world. What matters in a movie like this is the energy, ingenuity, and imagination of the filmmakers. Robert Rodriguez has proven that he has all three of those things in droves, making him one of the few directors who can, with his infectious sense of fun, overcome material this incoherent, trivial, and dismissible. Each of the first two Spy Kids films, especially the first one, was solid family entertainment that had a big heart. While Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over is good for what it is, it is something far less than its predecessors.