Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius (2001)
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Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius Movie Review
Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius is a 2001 animated family film directed by John A. Davis. It ranks among the weakest Oscar nominees in the animated category.
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“But dad, all my friends are going.
I know, son, but if all your friends were named Cliff,
would you jump off them? I don’t think so“
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The plot is nothing to write home about. The film is a “science fiction” tale and I write it that way because the SF is ludicrous here, even for a children’s film. The space sequences in the second half are among the weakest here as the first half at least had its endearing, fine moments. The movie was simply too childish for me to enjoy and I like children’s films, but this one was too limited in its appeal even for me. Though I really do think that the kids could love this flick.
Jimmy Neutron himself is your typical highly smart kid in these flicks and he’s overall rather forgettable. The others are mostly typical kids too, but the aliens are somewhat fun with Patrick Stewart’s King Goobot V being the standout. The voice acting is serviceable.
Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius has absolutely horrible CGI animation. They should have gone straight for hand-drawn instead of computer animation as they clearly had not enough budget for it. The results are terribly dated with bad character design, unpolished look to it, many patchy and crude scenes and simply bad color palette.
As for the dialogue, it’s fine and realistic when it comes to children. I also liked some of the character interactions and the flick’s heart is in the right place. But the storytelling remains thin, the pacing is also pretty bad and the runtime feels too long when in actuality the film is only 80 minutes long. That’s because it never stood the chance of being entertaining to adults owing to its childish tone and I was suitably rather bored with it.
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Again, this is a pretty harmless flick which definitely isn’t terrible, but it’s still a mediocre affair that should satisfy very young children, especially boys, and nobody else. I cannot understand why it was nominated for the first animated Oscar and even for the very weak competition of 2001, it still did not deserve it.
Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius is a baffling Oscar nominee with some good scenes, its heart is certainly in the right place and it’s good for kids, but it’s rather boring for adults owing to an overly childish tone to it. The characters are forgettable, the plot is silly and the CGI animation is absolutely atrocious and it was dated even when it came out.
