SPY KIDS 3-D: GAME OVER [ 1/2]

“Tron” rebooted. Running time: 87 minutes. Rated PG (action sequences and peril). At the Empire, the Chelsea, the Kips Bay.

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JUST because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.

New technology allows Robert Rodriguez to swoop and twist and pivot his 3-D cameras around the exhausting string of action scenes in “Spy Kids 3: Game Over.”

But combined with the eyestrain produced by the cheap cardboard 3-D glasses, the resulting vertigo is decidedly unpleasant – although having moon rocks and blobs of cream pie flying out from the screen is kinda cool in a retro way.

The bombastic sensory assault – the sound effects are deafening as well – is more forgivable than the fact that the talented Rodriguez has all but abandoned his storytelling skills to focus on the 3-D gimmick.

The general premise is basically a rebooting of the 1982 classic “Tron.”

Spy kid Juni (Daryl Sabara), who’s ditched the OSS spy organization and is working as a private eye, is lured back with a mission to rescue his sister Carmen (Alexa Vega).

She’s being held captive inside a virtual reality game by its creator, the Toymaker (Sylvester Stallone, looking every bit as incongruous as Robert De Niro did in “The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle”), who has an evil plan to enslave the world’s children and hence control the future of the world.

“Spy Kids” stalwart Floop (Alan Cumming) makes a brief reappearance, breaking the fourth wall to urge the audience to don their 3-D glasses once Juni enters the game – the setting for the majority of the movie.

Along the way, he acquires a love interest, Demetra (Courtney Jines), and a gaggle of fellow competitors who believe him to be “The Guy” who will lead them to victory.

Rodriguez’s carnivalesque production design is top-notch, but the effects are really hit and miss – and it’s hard to get involved in Juni’s progression through the game when the rules and objectives are so vague.

At one point, Juni brings in his wheelchair-bound grandfather (Ricardo Montalban), who has been hunting the Toymaker for over 30 years.

Their eventual confrontation occurs once everyone has been spat out of the game into the real – blessedly two-dimensional – world and Juni calls on the extended Spy Kids family for help.

This is really just an excuse for blink-and-you’ll-miss-them appearances by characters from the previous two films, including spy parents Antonio Banderas and Carla Gugino.

One of the biggest mistakes of “Spy Kids 3-D” was in asking Sabara to carry the film on his young shoulders, while Salma Hayek, George Clooney, Steve Buscemi, Mike Judge, Tony ShalHoub and Elijah Wood are relegated to cameos.

Another was Rodriguez’s misguided belief that the addition of a gooey “message” about the importance of family could make up for an extended assault on young senses.