Selena Gomez has been acting since she was a childhaving appeared on “Barney & Friends,” but rose to teen stardom with her recurring role on the Disney Channel series “Wizards of Waverly Place.” He also enjoys a notable pop career, which began in 2009 with his album “Kiss & Tell” when he was only 17 years old. Not only has her music received several awards, but she has continued to work as an actress, having racked up multiple Emmy Nominations for her work on the hit show “Only Murders in the Building.”
Meanwhile, Glen Powell has quickly become one of Hollywood’s most charming leading men, having recently appeared in the decent “Twisters,” the smash hit “Anyone But You,” the even bigger hit “Top Gun: Maverick” and the stunning comedy/thriller “Hitman.” Powell came to public attention in Richard Linklater’s 2016 sports film “Everybody Wants Some!!,” but had been working professionally since she was young, appearing on multiple high-profile television shows.
It turns out that Powell and Gomez have a common title in their respective early filmographies. When Gomez was just 11 and Powell was just 15, they both appeared (in very small roles) in Robert Rodriguez’s 2003 cyber thriller “Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over,” perhaps the strangest film in a very strange story. and strangely persistent film franchise. Gomez played a girl at a water park who has a brief conversation with Juni (Daryl Sabara), the film’s protagonist. Later in the film, Powell plays a video game player trapped inside a virtual reality world. Gomez is credited with being the “water park girl.” Powell is credited with being the “long-fingered kid.”
Do you remember the Spy Kids movies?
The premise of Robert Rodriguez’s “Spy Kids” movies is simple, but appealing. The series begins with a pair of little siblings (Sabara and Alexa Vega) who discover that their parents (Antonio Banderas and Carla Gugino) are top-secret superspies. When their parents are kidnapped, the kids have to don their parents’ ultra-sweet high-tech spy gear and fly to the rescue. “Spy Kids” is a cartoon, energetic and fun, and was a huge hit in 2001. It spawned a sequel in 2002, and the third film, “Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over,” was released in 2003.
“Game Over” was the strangest movie ever made up to that point. It took place primarily within the virtual world of a high-tech video game where Alexa Vega’s character was held captive by three evil scientists, all subconscious iterations of Toymaker, a villain played by Sylvester Stallone. Juni had to enter the simulation and win a series of increasingly difficult video game challenges to save her sister from harm. Within the simulation, Juni is constantly mistaken for a mythical player nicknamed The Guy, who is said to have enough skill to surpass the mythical Level 5.
The film sees the return of Banderas and Cugino, but also has small roles for Steve Buscemi, George Clooney, Elijah Wood, Mike Judge, Cheech Marin, Danny Trejo, Tony Shalhoub and Alan Cumming. It was also Ricardo Montalbán’s last on-screen rolewho played Juni’s grandfather. In the real world, Montalbán is sitting in a wheelchair, but in the video game world he has a powerful robot body. The virtual reality simulations are also all 3-D. Unfortunately, the 3-D effects were horrible and were not used with the gray-shaded polarized lenses of most 3-D movies, but with the old red and blue anaglyph 3-D.
Also, the CGI was clunky and bad. “Spy Kids 3-D” cost $37 million and presumably all of it went to the talent; his images are clearly cheap.
Meet Water Park Girl and Long-Fingered Boy, the roles played by Selena Gomez and Glen Powell in Spy Kids 3-D
Glen Powell’s role is very small. It seems to simply announce some exhibition. He tells Juni that he has reached the Arena of Misfortune and that he has to fight a Mech to reach Level 2. Powell, even as a teenager, has the charisma of a game show host and tells Juni that “come out.” there and fight” with a smile on his face. At the end of the Mech battle scene, Powell briefly returns to expel Juni to level 2.
Gómez’s role is a little more surreal. In the first parts of the film, Juni has stopped being a spy and now works as a children’s detective. It’s presented in a film noir-style narrative, complete with staccato saxophone on the soundtrack. He has arrived at a water park to investigate a crime, specifically, to locate all the missing water. He approaches a mysterious girl in a winter coat and announces that he has solved her case. The girl is Selena Gomez, and she looks like an 11-year-old version of a Russian femme fatale. It seems, Juni says, that “they” just turned off all the slides in the winter. “Who are ‘they’?” he asks. “The people who In fact “He owns this place,” Juni says mysteriously. “Oh,” Gomez says. Then he exits the movie.
Not very auspicious roles, but enough to keep both young men in work. Plus, the “Spy Kids” movies were huge in the 2000s, so it’s likely that they were both cast for their roles over many, many other hopeful child actors.
“Spy Kids 3-D” didn’t get very good reviews, but it grossed $197 million at the box office, so everyone walked away with money in their pockets. The most recent “Spy Kids” movie will be released in 2023.
