Those lucky enough to have grown up during the turn of the millennium may remember a silly little film called The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D, directed by Robert Rodriguez, who also directed the slightly more popular Spy Kids films. The film, and its title, were definitely a product of their time, but was popular with kids for its silly plot, cheesy CGI, and surprisingly heartfelt moments. In one of the surprising twists of 2020 however, Sharkboy and Lavagirl are back in an official sequel titled We Can Be Heroes.
Netflix's Twitter account posted a short trailer for the film, which will feature Taylor Dooley reprising her role as Lavagirl (though Taylor Lautner will not be back as Sharkboy). The basic plot is about as straightforward as one might expect: alien invaders have kidnapped all the superheroes on earth, leaving their children to team up to save their parents and the Earth itself. One of the children will be the daughter of Lavagirl and Sharkboy, and there will be quite a few surprisingly big names popping up as various superhero characters at some point in the film.
The trailer is, well it's pretty much what anyone could expect. Full of child actors doing their best with the scripts juxtaposed by adults hamming it up, all slathered in a layer of purposefully silly CGI. In that way, it's kind of incredible; ignore the slightly higher production values and higher resolution CGI and one could easily believe this was made 15 years ago alongside one of the original Spy Kids movies. It's rather admirable how faithfully the project has recaptured the spirit of the original film, at least so far as this trailer is concerned.
As of now it's not entirely clear how much of a role Sharkboy and Lavagirl themselves will play. It's probably a safe bet that they'll be more of a cameo than anything though, as the synopsis explicitly states all the adult heroes get kidnapped, leaving room for a new cast of child actors to take the main stage. Hopefully the film will capture the hearts of kids just like the original once did when it finally hits Netflix.
We Can Be Heroes will arrive on Netflix on New Year's Day, 2021.
Source: NetflixFilm/Twitter