| Product: |
Jimmy Neutron - Boy Genius (DVD) |
| Date: |
02/05/02 (258 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Will keep the kiddies entertained, Fun, fun, fun!
Disadvantages: The style of animation is an acquired taste
Well, it seems all I see at the movies these days is kiddie films! But then, there’s so many more of them nowadays - have you noticed that? So many, in fact, that the general upturn in quality and quantity led to the Academy adding a new category at this year’s Oscars; that of Best Animated Feature. Shrek robbed Monsters Inc. but I was intrigued by the remaining contender, the eponym that is: Jimmy Neutron!
As this was advertised as a Nickelodeon Productions movie (home of Rugrats) I assumed that this was based on an existing TV show, but my kids were unaware of it. Apparently, it is a whole new franchise that is being developed by Nickelodeon and DNA Production as a feature film, cartoon series and online gaming product. This led to the animation becoming their first CGI 3D animation attempt.
The plot is very straightforward and I’m not really giving anything away here. The titular hero is a young schoolboy who is a genius and continually shows off the inventions that he cooks up in his secret laboratory. (Anyone who’s seen Dexter’s Lab will get the idea.) His best friend is his robot dog, Goddard (voiced by Frank Welker, Fred from Scooby Doo) who’s party trick is to blow himself up when told to ‘play dead’ and then reassemble himself.
Jimmy is friends with the obligatory ‘fat kid’, Carl, and the nerdy Sheen, who is obsessed with the comic character Ultra Lord. His big rival is Cindy Vortex, who used to be the cleverest kid in class until Jimmy showed up and they have an ‘interesting’ relationship! These are very likeable characters and, for me, Sheen steals the movie with some of the funniest moments.
Jimmy lives in Retroville and the name of the town gives some idea of what kind of place it is. His parents forbid him to go to the opening of the local fair because it is a school night. He sneaks out anyway and as he and his friends travel home later that
night they wish on a falling star that they didn’t have their parents around to spoil all their fun.
The ‘star’ turns out to be an alien spacecraft which has been monitoring messages sent by Jimmy in a quest to discover intergalactic life. Well, he’s succeeded but alas these aliens are only looking for a tasty new food source for their ‘god’, which turns out to be some sort of giant chicken! (Hey, it’s that kind of movie!) They steal all the parents leaving the kids to wake up to a town with no authority figures left in it.
It doesn’t quite turn into a cartoon version of Lord of the Flies; the worst these kids get up to is eating too much junk food but once they start feeling ill and scrape their knees and can’t find anyone to comfort them they start to miss their parents. (Have you spotted the MORAL yet?!)
No worries; Jimmy converts the rides at the fair into interstellar spaceships and they all troop off to save their parents.
Okay, the basic plot tells you that this is really a kids’ movie and not to be taken too seriously. There are a couple of moments that will appeal to the grown-ups in the audience, however. My favourite was Sheen being tricked at ‘show-and-tell’ into opening a box containing an extra-rare valuable Ultra Lord toy to prove that it was, in fact, in there: His reaction when he realises what he’s done in opening the box and devaluing the worth of the toy is priceless. It may have gone over the heads of the little ‘uns in the audience but it had me chuckling!
The film picks up pace as it rushes towards its climax. Jimmy gets to be a bit of a hero and save the day and there is a real sense of adventure that drives the film onwards. It’s not too scary as the aliens resemble green globs of goo inside transparent eggs but there is some violence, although nobody (or no thing) seems to get hurt.
The only
voice stars that I recognised were the two main aliens, King Goobot (Star Trek’s Patrick Stewart) and his aide, Ooblar (Martin Short). To say that they both ‘give it their all’ is an understatement but their performances are most enjoyable.
Director John Davis (Olive the Other Reindeer) and writer Steve Oedekerk (Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls and The Nutty Professor movies) don’t have much of a track record in animation but their efforts here suggest that the franchise may well take off.
All in all, this film is a real blast and I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would. The animation is a bit ‘cartoony’ if that makes any sense, more like a computer game and lacking the subtlety of its fellow Oscar nominees, but if you can ignore that and enjoy its good heart and warm characters then you should find the 82-minute running time passing fairly easily. As for the kids, well they all loved it. My two have been playing at it ever since they saw it.
This film will appeal mostly to ten-and-unders but parents won’t find it too much of a hardship to sit through!
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