Getting into games. Literally.

It was the theme of TRON and now director Robert Rodriguez has also set much of his latest film, Spy Kids 3-D, inside a game. But does the way in which filmmakers visualise the environments on-screen bear any relation to the equivalents actually found in games?

The world of 1982's TRON was of course nothing like the contemporaneous games. The cyberspace where Jeff Bridges hangs out with Bruce Boxleitner in funky glowing outfits was a remarkable 3-D realm (to be revisited in upcoming PC game TRON 2.0), but a fantasy of writer/director Steven Lisberger.

Rodriguez's film realises a notional cyberspace with filmmaking technologies that are much more closely related to those used in games production. That's not to say that the in-game realm of Spy Kids 3-D segues convincingly into the realms we know from actual games, but there were obviously people on board with some games savvy.

"Why is it that every game has to have lava in it?" one of the kids inside the game asks. "There's no lava in Halo and in Metroid, technically speaking…" muses another. The daffiest thing about the film, however, is the very fact that it concerns "the biggest virtual reality game in history". Sure, this is a conceit that's useful for the narrative, but it gives the endeavour a Lawnmower Man vibe, and we all know how quickly that dated.

That said, the notion of a virtual gameworld worked well in Mamoru Oshii's exquisite Avalon, about an addictive war game. Aside from the whole immersive myth, Avalon is actually comparable with PlanetSide in its combination of multiplayer armies and relentless warfare.

The good-natured short, Inferno, sees two petty criminals digitized into a game vaguely like Doom. Spy Kids 3-D might offer some fun cinematic reference points for gamers, but Inferno is more immediate and credible with its satire-cum-homage. And both Inferno and Spy Kids 3-D thankfully sidestep that whole grim heaviness that The Matrix films have indelibly associated with cyber antics. Daniel Etherington 08 Aug 03

Spy Kids 3-D is on national release.