Movie Review – Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius (2001)

As I child, I was one of many who often fantasized about flying around on jet packs or riding rockets to distant planets (often during math class).

That’s the kind of spirit prevalent in 2001′s CGI animated movie, Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius.  Jimmy Neutron, a genius and inventor still stuck in elementary school, gets to fulfill that science-fiction adventure and more in this animated film.

I honestly don’t remember Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius when it was released in the movie theaters back in 2001.  The top movies back then were DreamWorks’ Shrek along with Disney/Pixar’s Monsters, Inc.  Actually, the only reason I decided to watch and review the Jimmy Neutron film was that the Jimmy Neutron’s Nicktoon Blast ride was just added to Florida-Project.com, a website dedicated to the history and future development of the Walt Disney World and Universal Orlando theme parks.

The ride at Universal Studios Florida was a lot of fun, so I figured I might as well see what the movie was like.  I don’t watch the Nickelodeon cartoons any more (not since those glory days back in the early 1980′s), but I will check out the occasional animated movie if it looks interesting.  Or if there’s heavy influence of it in a theme park.

Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius (2001) – (c) Paramount Pictures

Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius begins with an Air Force base detecting an unknown presence in the skies.  The base commander scrambles four fighters to check it out.  The unidentified flying object turns out to be Jimmy Neutron and his friend Carl going on a rocket ride (it looks like the Mark II rocket they use in “Jimmy Neutron’s Nicktoon Blast” at Universal Studios Florida).  The boys fly into the upper atmosphere and Jimmy launches a toaster that was converted into a satellite.

Back at home, Jimmy’s parents are wondering if he’ll be on time for the school bus.  The boys race back home and Carl parachutes back to the ground.  Jimmy, meanwhile, makes a crash landing in his rocket, skidding across several roofs until he finally stops.  His mom is angry with him being on the roof again.  Whatever.  Jimmy uses his inventions to help him get ready for school.  He still misses the school bus, and Jimmy has to use yet another invention to make it to class on time.

Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius (2001) – (c) Paramount Pictures

Today is show-and-tell day in class.  Jimmy is teased by his genius rival, Cindy Vortex, as his shrinking ray fails to work properly.  This also brings about the teasing by Nick Dean, the popular (and lazy) kid in class.  When the students leave the classroom, Jimmy’s shrinking ray accidentally fires and shrinks their teacher, Ms. Fowl.

Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius (2001) – (c) Paramount Pictures

While walking home from school, Jimmy and his friends Carl and Sheen spot a poster advertising the opening of Retroland amusement park.  The boys want to be there for opening night, but none of their parents will give them permission.  It’s a school night.  Nick Dean skates by and tells them to sneak out of home.  After all, everybody will be at Retroland tonight.  Jimmy Neutron tries to sweet talk and bribe his mom with gifts, but she still refuses to let him go out tonight.  Despite being told not to go, Jimmy shrinks himself with his shrinking ray and sneaks out of the house.  He meets with Carl and Sheen, and the boys head to Retroland.

Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius (2001) – (c) Paramount Pictures

Out in space, Jimmy’s toaster is captured by an alien spaceship.  The aliens are Yolkians from the planet Yolkus, and they look like, well, eggs.  The leader, King Goobot, and his assistant, Ooblar, watch the message that Jimmy embedded in his toaster / communicator.  The Yolkians show interest when they see a picture of Neutron’s parents.  Apparently they look mighty tasty to the Yolkians.  The aliens set a direct course and race towards Earth.

Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius (2001) – (c) Paramount Pictures

The boys have the time of their lives at Retroland.  Nick Dean sees them on one of the rides and is impressed that Jimmy and his friends actually sneaked out of their parents’ homes.  While leaving the park, the boys talk about how great it was having fun without their parents.  Carl spies a shooting star (which is really the Yolkians’ spaceship leaving with their cargo of adults) and wishes that all of their parents were gone.  Those parents are really a nuisance, right?

Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius (2001) – (c) Paramount Pictures

The next day, all the kids discover that none of their parents are around.  They each have a printed note from their “parents” stating that they went on vacation to Florida.  They’re all gone.  You know what that means.  Party time!  All the kids in town go crazy and do whatever they want without parents telling them otherwise.  They spend all day playing and breaking every rule imaginable.  By the next morning, reality sets in that they really miss their parents.

Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius (2001) – (c) Paramount Pictures

While Jimmy is wondering why his parents left, his robotic dog, Goddard, plays a message left by his parents the night he sneaked away to Retroland.  He hears his parents telling him goodnight and that they loved him and will see him in the morning.  If they left a message like that, then what’s with the note that he and everybody else found the next morning?  Jimmy does some investigating and discovers that his parents were kidnapped by space aliens.

Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius (2001) – (c) Paramount Pictures

Word spreads through the neighborhood that Jimmy knows what happened to their parents.  The kids gather and listen to Jimmy as he explains what happened.  They agree to help him build a small fleet of spaceships to follow the aliens and get back their parents.  Everybody helps build rockets out of the rides at Retroland.  In no time the fleet is ready and everybody launches into outer space.

Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius (2001) – (c) Paramount Pictures

After dodging meteors and spending a lonely night on a planet, the gang eventually tracks the Yolkians back to their home planet of Yolkus.  It doesn’t take long until they’re all captured by Yolkian guards and brought before King Goobot.  The king shows them Jimmy Neutron’s video message and thanks him for making it so easy for the Yolkians to track the message and find planet Earth.  He then informs them that their parents are going to be sacrificed to their god, Poultra.  King Goobot sends the kids off to the dungeon and has Ooblar take Goddard away to be dismantled.

Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius (2001) – (c) Paramount Pictures

In the dungeon, there’s a collective hatred towards Jimmy Neutron and how it’s his fault that all of their parents were captured and about to be sacrificed.  Jimmy’s feeling sorry for himself while in solitude, and Cindy Vortex talks some sense into him.  He suddenly figures out how to escape from prison.  Using another girl’s cell phone, Jimmy calls Goddard and uses his voice to trick Ooblar into thinking that Goddard is about to self-destruct.  Ooblar flees the room, allowing Goddard to escape and come rescue the kids locked in the dungeon.

Now it’s time to rescue the parents.

Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius (2001) – (c) Paramount Pictures

All of the parents are in the arena and still under the control of the Yolkians.  In preparation for the sacrifice, King Goobot makes the parents perform the Chicken Dance.  At the end of the Chicken Dance, the massive egg in the middle of the arena hatches and out pops Poultra, a giant alien that looks like a chicken.

Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius (2001) – (c) Paramount Pictures

While flying to Yolkus, Nick Dean kept insisting that he be the one to battle the aliens.  When Poultra hatches and looks down at him in the arena, Nick turns and runs away, screaming wildly.  Jimmy thinks of a new plan to help rescue their parents.  He tells Sheen to commandeer the transport ship the saw earlier, and everybody else to distract the Yolkian guards.  The kids fight the guards and win fairly easily in a short battle.  While they’re fighting the guards, Jimmy gets to the control booth and gains control of the mind controlling device.  He “instructs” the parents to flee the arena and board the spaceship.  They do so and everybody flies away from planet Yolkus, barely avoiding Poultra while doing so.

All seems well until King Goobot’s ship catches up with the transport vessel.  They cannot outrun the king, nor do they have any weapons.  The king then makes fun of Jimmy’s small size, much like how his classmates did back in school.  Jimmy boards an escape pod and uses his shrinking ray on himself, but reversed.  He enlarges himself greatly and sends King Goobot’s ship on a wild flight path.  King Goobot vows his revenge as the transport spaceship makes a safe getaway.

Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius (2001) – (c) Paramount Pictures

Back on Earth, Jimmy Neutron respects his parents again and feels lucky to have them back in his life.  His parents accidentally sample one of Jimmy’s inventions, Burping Soda.  They stand around belching to each other as the movie ends.  During the end credits we see that the teacher, Ms. Fowl, is still shrunk and has finally conquered the worm that was fighting her on her desk.

So is Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius any good?

The answer depends on your age and what you’re looking for in an animated movie.

If I was still in elementary school, I’d probably give the movie high marks.  It seems like it would be a lot of fun for the younger crowd, especially for boys.  But as an adult, I just see flaws and plot holes in the storyline.  Nor am I amused by the extreme simplicity when it comes to solving problems.  The ability for everybody to magically breathe normally not only in the upper atmosphere but also outer space (no enclosed cockpits or spacesuits here) will be overlooked since this is a kids’ movie.

It’s hard to see Jimmy Neutron as a role model for kids.  He frequently destroys private property.  When he wanted to butter up his mom and give her gifts, everything he gave her was stolen in one way or another.  And when his parents refused to let him go out at night, he deliberately disobeyed them and went out to play anyway.  It’s a toss-up as to whether or not he really learned his lesson.

The best characters by far were King Goobt and his fellow Yolkians.  It was fun seeing them in the movie along with the egg references.  Their presence alone saved this movie from failure.

As it was mentioned earlier, the only reason I watched Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius was because I liked the Jimmy Neutron’s Nicktoon Blast simulator ride at Universal Studios Florida.  The ride (or rather, the former ride) makes more sense now, though you really didn’t need to see the movie first to enjoy it.

Jimmy Neutron’s Nicktoon Blast – preshow, full ride and post show

Jimmy Neutron’s Nicktoon Blast involved Ooblar sneaking his way into Jimmy Neutron’s laboratory and stealing his latest invention, the Mark IV rocket.  He flies away and it’s up to us to help Jimmy and Carl chase Ooblar and take back the rocket.  Jimmy and Carl fly in the Mark II, and we’re riding along in an old Mark I rocket that Jimmy pilots for us by remote control.

The chase begins in the Nicktoon Studios before ultimately returning to planet Yolkus.  King Goobot sicks Poultra on us, but we manage to escape and make our way back to Earth.  After visiting Spongebob Squarepants and friends at Bikini Bottom, we end up back in Jimmy Neutron’s laboratory.  King Goobot returns and forces our rockets to dance along to the Chicken Dance song.  Carl breaks free of his mind control, and he and Jimmy defeat King Goobot.

All in all, it was a pretty slick simulator ride and just a lot of fun, even for those of us who didn’t watch any of those cartoons.  The animation was sharp, the characters were amusing, and it was just a fun ride.

Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius (2001) – movie trailer

Getting back to Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, it’s not a bad film.  Clearly the animated movie was intended for children.  The CGI animation is good (it’s no Shrek or Monsters, Inc., but it’s still good for that time period) and the movie flows at a fast pace.  Some of the scenes are pretty neat, such as Jimmy flying around with his jet pack, or when all the kids take off in their rockets.

Many kids will still love this film.  Adults, well, let’s just leave it at that.  Remember, the kids will have fun with Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius.

[Jimmy’s dad burps]

Mr. Neutron – “Well, at least it’s coming out of the attic and not the basement.”