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feature reviews |
Jimmy Neutron - Boy Genius is a rather silly, mostly harmless kid flick. Quick plot synopsis: Nerd Jimmy and his two equally socially misfit best friends sneak out on a school night to go to a fair. While all the kids are at the fair, aliens beam away all the parents in town, because, unbeknownst to Jimmy, they intercepted his interstellar communication device (rigged from his mom's purloined toaster), got the coordinates for Earth, and decided the people looked yummy, although the kids are too small. On the way home Jimmy and friends wish on a falling star (unbeknownst to them, actually the ship carrying away their parents) that all the parents would disappear so they could have fun all the time.
When they wake next morning, all the kids in town find identical notes pinned to their fridges saying their parents have gone to Florida. They have a massive city-wide party, and all wake with tummyaches and boo-boos the next day, crying for mommy. Jimmy analyzes his note and figures out what really happened; he and the other kids turn the fair rides into interstellar ships in two days, travel to the alien planet in open seating (not even glass bubbles!), and spend the night around bonfires on an asteroid. When they get there, the parents are about to be sacrificed to the god of the planet, an enormous, hideous chicken monster (which scared my four-year-old, but was very brief). Of course they save the day and get home safely.
Grossness (very little): Jimmy's cyber dog "poops" nuts and bolts on the porch; the little girl reporting on the disappearance of the parents has to quickly stop picking her nose every time the camera comes back to her; Jimmy's dad belches and says "At least it's coming out of the attic and not the basement!"
No bad language; no sexual innuendo, although there is a mouthy James Dean-like dreamboat that all the girls in class sigh over.
The worst thing I thought was the perpetuation of dad-as-idiot; Mr. Neutron can't even say a complete sentence and calls his son "Jamesy-Jimmy-wimmy-Jum-Jom-jimmy". Mom, on the other hand, is just a bit of a shrew.
Everything wraps up with a nice moral: don't talk to strangers. Actually, the moral is listen to your parents; Jimmy says he thought because he was so smart he could ignore their advice not to talk to strangers ("I don't care how advanced the civilization is; if your father and I haven't met them they're strangers!" says mom at the beginning of the movie).
Anyway, it's cute, mostly harmless, and has some real groaners that will have the adults rolling their eyes at each other as they try not to smile. As long as you don't ask questions (where were the babies, or for that matter any kids not Jimmy's age?), it's enjoyable.
Copyright (c) 2002 Carma Paden. All rights reserved. No portion may be reproduced in any fashion without express permission.
