9. Robert Rodriguez - Sharkboy and Lavagirl In 3D (2005)
When Robert Rodriguez, who has spent much of his career working with the same B-movie tendencies as his friend and contemporary Quentin Tarantino, suddenly announced that his next movie would be aimed at children and would be called
Spy Kids, I didn't really know what to say. Well, except for: "What are you doing?" And although it was still a somewhat strange career movie,
Spy Kids (and
Spy Kids 2, for that matter) were actually pretty decent. But I think, having proven himself, Rodriguez should have left the kids' movies there. He didn't, of course, because one he was done with the brilliant
Sin City, he decided to make an entire movie based around some characters that his kid thought up. Awesome Dad points, sure, but Totally Freakin' Insane points, too - what
was this? I get that this director likes making movies for children (his own children, in fact), but
Sharkboy and Lavagirl was a step too far. Why did Rodriguez want this on his filmography? Didn't Tarantino tell him that he was nuts to do this? Thankfully he reverted to sanity when he "killed" off his own son in
Planet Terror.