Will C Wilson

I don't HATE this movie, but it's clear that the show was in a position here that poisoned it and made it draw to a close before suffering the SpongeBob/Family Guy/Simpsons fate of over staying it's welcome. On the surface level, it's very exciting and has a clear intention on being a crowd pleaser, with it's energetic, fast paced attitude, anyone who's a novice to the show would like this just fine. And that's the movie's biggest problem. The first 5 seasons of this show were good at balancing entertainment and morals, with the right amount of far-fetched to make the appeal also extend to children. This movie wants to be the exact opposite. The passion and effort from everybody involved is admirable. The animation is better than the show, with more polished graphics and a different frame rate, and the music shows the composer pushed his skills to the limit with this one, it's hectic, exciting, suspenseful, sad, so many things that make a good score. However, due to the story itself going against the show's fundamentals, I have to dock off a couple points. It feels like it wants to be a film like "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" (1968), or "Hello Dolly"(1969), musicals that are so wrapped up in the fact that they're musicals that they forget to be movies. It seems true in a sense for this movie, although musical numbers are sometimes infrequent, mostly popping up during the upteenth time that the viewer is reminded that Zowie's turning 3. (I know people will say that it's a movie made for preschoolers and they sometimes need repetition to learn things, I just believe it's such a huge block in the story, like the story stops moving forward and we play a song like it's a jukebox.) James Woods as Gloomius Maximus is one of the saving graces of this movie. It's such a joy to watch him giving his all in this role, getting so wrapped up in how bad he is, a la Vincent Price as Ratigan. Overall though, even if this movie has all these things going for it, the underlevels of the movie, the story, primarily, really keep me from saying it's good. For all the bad things i'm saying about this movie, it really is one of those where you shouldn't look for a faithful representation of the source material, but for a pure popcorn flick. Something to turn off your brain while watching, and, hopefully, get some entertainment value out of it. I just strongly dislike it because I feel it's the showing signs that fate reered it's ugly head for Rolie Polie Olie, and whatever poisoned the show and caused the networks to drop it, it seems to have started here.