Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius

Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius isn't the worst movie for your kids to see, but considering the promotional build-up it received, it's pretty uneven. The really big laughs (and they are plentiful when they finally arrive) don't come until the movie's second half. Until then, the animation and plot have to carry the story, and it's very enforced labor. I'm a big animation buff, and the time and money spent working on "Jimmy Neutron" is definitely on the screen. But I didn't get much pleasure out of watching it. The title character, voiced by cartoon vet Megan Cavanagh, is a precocious child scientist who comes up with elaborate inventions that ultimately backfire. This appears to be a workable concept for comedy, but Jimmy's peers are so blase about his wild inventions that eventually the annui extends to the movie audience. You'd think Jimmy's peers would be wild about a kid who can invent a bubble-gum ride that bounces you to school and things like that, but all they want to do is sneer at what a nerd Jimmy is. Maybe their dismissive attitude comes from their surroundings. After seeing the elaborate otherworlds of "Harry Potter" and "Shrek" (released just months before this flick) Jimmy's home town of Retrotown looks pretty dreary. For an animated movie about kids, this place looks strangely underpopulated--Jimmy and his pals stand in lonely alleys and abandoned storefronts as though they're just waiting to get mugged. And the characters aren't the usual animated, outre fun--they're just enough beyond the norm to look weird. Jimmy's mom sports a '60s-style Barbie haircut, his dad is an all-too-believable geek, and even by cartoon standards, you wonder how this pair ever got together. The plot that drives the movie along is a real groaner, too--Jimmy sends a message to outer space, and it gets picked up by aliens who decide that humans look like a good snack. After all the townkids sneak off to a local carnival, the parents get zapped up by the aliens. This provides the first (and for a long time, the only) huge laugh, when the kids realize they're without supervision and proceed to party until dawn. Eventually, of course, the kids want their parents back, and the movie finally gooses itself up when the kids arrive at the alien planet. But for a movie written by Steve Oedekerk (who put Jim Carrey's "Ace Ventura" and Eddie Murphy's "Nutty Professor" through their paces), this movie is mostly quite earthbound. As with most underachieving cartoons, the fun is in spotting the celeb voices who went slumming for a job. Best of all is Patrick Stewart (the plummily-voweled Capt. Picard from "Star Trek"), who cuts loose here like he's on a bender. But if you want a really great animated comedy about alien invaders, go rent Bugs Bunny's "Space Jam."