Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius
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 "Hi! Nice antiques! Gotta blast!"
— Jimmy Neutron | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius is a 2001 American computer-animated comedy science fiction film directed by John A. Davis. A Nickelodeon Movies production in conjunction with O Entertainment and his studio Dallas-based DNA Productions, the film was produced by Davis and was written by David N. Weiss. The movie follows the title character an extremely intelligent 11-year-old boy who sets out to rescue his parents from rogue aliens. The film was released by Paramount Pictures on December 21, 2001, with a box office that has grossed over $103 million internationally. The movie was inspired by South Park's "The Wacky Molestation Adventure", but with some differences.
Plot
Jimmy Neutron, an 11-year-old boy who lives with his parents in Retroville, attempts to enter Retroland, but his parents do not allow him whatsoever. Meanwhile, the Yolkians invade adults in Retroville when Jimmy's communication satellite is a bit malfunction. It is up to Jimmy and his friends to save their parents and defeat the Yolkians from their home planet.
Why It's A Brain Blast
- The movie serves as a backdoor pilot to the Jimmy Neutron spin-off TV series, which also commenced a boatload of humorous internet phenomena, and this is also based on the Jimmy Neutron pilot shorts that aired on Nickelodeon from 1998-2001.
- It was also a love letter and an apology over South Park's "The Wacky Molestation Adventure", because children can cooperate and team up to rescue their parents rather than protesting them to bash in the M word.
- Memorable and memetic characters like Jimmy himself, Goddard, Jimmy’s parents (especially Hugh Neutron), Carl, Sheen, Cindy, Libby, Nick Dean, Ms. Fowl, Britney, and Ultra Lord.
- Excellent vocal acting throughout the 1 hour and 22 minutes from Debi Derryberry, Rob Paulsen, Carolyn Lawrence, Frank Welker, Jeffrey Garcia, and Candi Milo.
- Intense amount of radical jokes, such as Sheen presenting the Ultra Lord to the students.
- Excellent CGI animation, even for 2001 standards, which is very well animated by Sean Maynard using LightWave and Messiah.
- Jimmy's inventions are pretty cool and clever like the Shrink Ray, his Jetpack, his rocket, and of course, Goddard.
- The brain blast segments are awesome.
- An out-of-this-world plot that no one views in science fiction films like before, where aliens abduct the parents of the kids, and the kids head into space to the alien’s planet to save their parents.
- Shows more expression than the follow-up series.
- A perfect example is when the children of Retroville are in the Yolkian’s cells when Jimmy realizes that the parents getting abducted was his fault and his friends become bitter towards him. In his separate cell, Jimmy starts crying, not just out of remorse, but also out of his insecurities.
- Grateful morals about parental guardians, as the children of Retroville, realize they would not survive without them, and in the end, they all happily reunite with their parents, especially Jimmy, who apologizes to his parents for his behavior and happily embraces them. This is what "The Wacky Molestation Adventure" should have been.
- Great dialogue such as "I may be small, but I've got a big brain!" and "Oh, and by the way, Mom says you're grounded. Sorry!".
- Grown vocals for the juvenile cast were used correctly rather than having actual children voicing said characters.
- It also uses adult voices for children the right way.
- Has an extravagant charisma in all scenes wacky and serious, especially the scene where Jimmy uses his shrink ray’s growth setting, to grow into a huge size and easily defeat King Goobot.
- The antagonists, the Yolkians, mainly King Goobot V and Ooblar, were presented as sentient eggshell-type extraterrestrials with the yolk.
- Not-so-earworm-worthy OST album including songs by Aaron Carter and alt-punk band Bowling for Soup, and their version of the theme song.
Bad Qualities
- Nearly all of the wording was used in the same typeface, which is viewed as somewhat tacky.
- Some people may have looked at the cast modeling appearance as grotesque. Remember, this was at a time when CGI was a bit hard to master by many, and only Pixar could get it right.
- Quite a few scenes that are implausible in real-life science. (i.e. How can Jimmy survive in outer space without an astronaut suit?)
- The gimmick involving Jimmy’s disproportionately large forehead is very off-topic since most of the child cast has these. Possibly nowhere almost shadowing him, however still somewhat huge.
- Jimmy's line "I wish I have no more parents.", while better than Kyle's "I wish I did not have any parents!" from South Park's "The Wacky Molestation Adventure", can lead to bad morals since Jimmy and the others would trash Retroville, and it shows later after this scene.
Trivia
- Coincidentally, Patrick Stewart and Martin Short also starred in The Prince of Egypt.
- A gentle dark ride "Planet of the Cats" is an obvious reference to Franklin J. Schaffner's 1968 film Planet of the Apes.
- One of the rides in Retroland, Eye in the Sky, has a scared kid's face with eyes wide open and his hands on his cheeks. That's the famous pose of Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone (which itself is a parody of the Edward Munch painting, The Scream). It is also the pose of Luigi in Luigi's Mansion, released around the time of this film.
- During the scene when the kids are camping on the asteroid, Nick's story is from the 1999 film The Blair Witch Project.
- Jimmy and the other children battling the Yolkian guards is a reference to Agent J battling the giant alien cockroach to prevent him from going near the second spaceship at an abandoned World's Fair from the 1997 film Men in Black.
- The film is one of two Nickelodeon animated films to be nominated for an Academy Award. The other movie is 2011's Rango, which won the Oscar for the best-animated feature of that year.
- Kevin Michael Richardson would have voiced Captain Spoor but his scenes were cut. He was shown in the theatrical trailer.
- In the theatrical trailer, Cindy said “If we blow up, whatever’s left of me is kicking your butt”, which would have taken place just before the kids lifted off from Retroland.
Reception
Critical Response
Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius received generally positive reviews from critics and audiences. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 74% based on 76 reviews, with an average rating of 6.37/10. The critics' consensus reads: "What Jimmy Neutron lacks in computer animation, it makes up for in charm and cleverness." According to Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 65 out of 100 based on 21 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
Rita Kempley of the Washington Post praised the film, saying that "this little charmer both celebrates and kids the corny conventions of family sitcoms". Nell Minow of Common Sense Media enjoyed the "stylish 3-D computer animation, good characters", giving the film 3 out of 5 stars. Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave this film a grade of "B+", calling it "a lickety-split, madly packed, roller-coaster entertainment that might almost have been designed to make you scared of how much smarter your kids are than you". Paul Tatara of CNN.com called the film "the most delightfully original children's film of 2001". Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three stars out of four, saying that "it doesn't have the little in-jokes that make Shrek and Monsters, Inc. fun for grown-ups. But adults who appreciate the art of animation may enjoy the look of the picture".
Box Office
The film was financially successful, grossing $13,833,228 on its opening weekend in third place behind The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and Ocean's Eleven and ended up with a total of $80,936,232 domestically, and the film did better overseas grossing $22,056,304 which made a total of $102,992,536 worldwide. It had a budget of roughly $30 million. It is one of only twelve feature films to be released in over 3,000 theaters and still improves on its box office performance in its second weekend, increasing 8.7% from $13,832,786 to $15,035,649.