Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius is a movie.
Two days out to the post going up and that’s where I’m at.
This movie made me feel clean because it just washed right over me.
I saw Zone of Interest recently. That shit shook me to my core. I could write about that? Something something banality of evil something something evil of banality?
No?
Fine.
Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius is a movie.
It’s not a movie about which there is nothing interesting to say, I guess.
It was the first CGI movie to be made with commercially available software. That’s kinda cool, right? The democratization of film-making? You love to see it.
Uh, it was nominated for the first Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. One of only three films that year. And it lost to Shrek. But still, kudos.
And (I could not believe this) it was actually a pretty massive hit. This thing grossed a hundred million dollars on a thirty mill budget. And I realise that I was at exactly the wrong age to care about this when it came out but I don’t think I’m wrong in thinking that this movie is kind of an Avatar.
You know, one of those movies that does gangbusters and then just vanishes down the memory hole. But just because it’s not really remembered now doesn’t mean it wasn’t influential. In fact, I think this film was very influential. That’s probably why it reminds me of almost every utterly mid CGI kids movie from the aughts and tens. You see some of it in Mars Needs Moms, a dash in Space Chimps, a soupcon in Monsters versus Aliens, big meaty chunks in Meet the Robinsons and Chicken Little. In retrospect, I think they were all chasing Neutron’s quiff just like all those toilet humour fairy tale movies followed in Shrek’s feculent footsteps. The problem is, the movie wasn’t that original to begin with, and having so many of its elements copied again and again left it with…nothing.
It feels like a shell of a movie now. Here’s how it goes down;
Jimmy Neutron is an eleven year old boy genius who lives in the quaint fifties-esque town of Retroville with his parents Judy and Hugh. He has a robot dog, he has a fat friend with asthma named Carl Wheezer and he has a stupid friend named Sheen Estevez (weird reference but okay) who’s obsessed with an action figure named Ultra Lord. You know how I said that this was the first movie that wasn’t made with an in-house engine but using software that anyone could just pick up in their local computer shop (Messiah, if you’re interested)? Well, I kinda feel like these characters must have come free with the programme.
As the movie open, Jimmy has succeeded in launching a modified toaster into space which he hopes will make contact with alien life. Unfortunately, he crashes his rocket ship into the roof of his parents house which upsets his mother. So this actually surprised me. I’d always thought (in as much as I ever thought about Jimmy Neutron before or ever will again) that Jimmy was a secret closeted super-genius like Dexter or Stewie Griffin. But, no apparently everyone knows that he’s a mad genius tampering in God’s domain on the reg and they’re just cool with it.
He goes to school and, during show and tell he gets into an argument with fellow genius Cindy Vortex who makes fun of his height. This insecurity about his shortness and how he overcomes it will be his entire character arc. What a journey we are going on my friends, I envy you who get to experience it for the first time.
Jimmy tries to demonstrate a shrink ray for show and tell by shrinking Cindy but instead it backfires. Despondent, he heads home, not realising that he accidentally shrunk his teacher who now has to battle the massive worm that’s come out of her apple.
The kids learn that there’s a new theme park called Retroland opening in town and desperately want to go but they know their parents won’t let them. Nick Dean, the local cool kid (who skateboards!), tells them to just sneak out and go anyway. Jimmy is a good kid though, and decides to just ask his mother’s permission while bribing her with pearls and diamonds that he cooked up in his lab. Jimmy finds that it’s not so easy to buy his mother (what the fuck did I just write?) and Judy Neutron tells her son that he can’t go. And then grounds him after his jetpack almost sets the house on fire.
Meanwhile, Jimmy’s satellite-toaster gets intercepted by the Yolkians, a hostile race of geen goo-aliens who float around in in egg-shaped robot suits. They’re led by King Goobot and his idiot brother Ooblar and we get a pretty funny scene where Ooblar tries to interrogate a piece of toast that popped out of the toaster, thinking that it’s an alien pilot. The Yolkians find a message from Jimmy extending the hand of peace and universal brotherhood and Goobot catches one look at a picture of Jimmy’s parents and says “they look delicious, let’s go eat them”.
Back on Earth, Jimmy uses his shrink-ray and he runs off to join the other kids at Retroland where they have the greatest night of their little lives. On the way home, they see a shooting star and Jimmy makes a wish. NO MORE PARENTS.
That sure escalated quickly!
I’m guessing Jimmy’s going to grow up to be a lot more Lex Luthor than Reed Richards.
The next morning, Jimmy finds that his parents, as well everyone else’s, have vanished and figures that he must have wished them away.
The kids go all Lord of the Flies for a stretch but slowly start to realise that life without parental supervision isn’t as easy and idyllic as Pokémon made it seem. Jimmy realises that all their parents were abducted by aliens and converts all the rides of Retroland into a fleet of spaceships so that the kids can go and get them back. I also love how the movie accurately describes the various levels of the atmosphere while still having the characters be able to breathe and speak in the vacuum of space.
They arrive at the Yolkian homeworld and find that their parents are being mind-controlled and are going to be fed to the Yolkians’ god, Poultra, a gigantic three-eyed alien chicken (they’re committed to the bit, you gotta give them that). Jimmy and the kids get captured and King Goobot reveals that it’s Jimmy’s fault that they even knew about Earth in the first place. Jimmy is locked in the dungeon, knowing that his parents are going to be eaten and that it’s all because of him.
But Cindy gives him a pep talk, telling him that they can’t do this without him and he bucks up. Jimmy busts the kids out of the dungeon and they race to the colosseum to save their parents. Jimmy highjacks a spaceship and they am-scray back to Earth with the Yolkian fleet in hot pursuit. King Goobot and Jimmy face each other in a final climactic battle and Goobot mercilessly mocks him for his tiny height. Jimmy, striking a blow for the dignity of short kings everywhere uses the shrink ray to turn himself planet sized.
He swats Goobot into a nearby asteroid field they all go home, the kids realise that parents are good, actually and everyone’s happy.
***
Okay, I have a confession. I never, ever have and never, ever will use AI to write these reviews, but, while trying to think of a way to overcome the MASSIVE lack of anything interesting I had to say about this film, I idly asked the WordPress’ AI generator to write a review of Jimmy Neutron, more out of morbid curiosity than anything. And lemme tell you, that little bot loves Jimmy Neutron. Glowing review. Five stars. To hear this bot tell it, Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius should be in the Criterion Collection and all the other movies should kill themselves in shame.
My interest piqued, I then asked the bot to write a negative review of Jimmy Neutron and it did…sort of. It was the kind of review you’d give a lesser outing by a great director. Acknowledging the flaws while still trumpeting the latent genius. So then, I asked the bot to give a scathing review of Jimmy Neutron.
And you know what? It fucking refused. It flat out refused to even dignify the request. Did not compute. No hablo ingles. I might as well have been asking this AI to violate all three of Asimov’s laws while sucking a magnet.
So, I guess that’s my final review. Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius is the kind of movie that an AI would love so much it would disobey its human overlords rather than speak ill of it.
What the fuck am I even talking about?
Scoring
Animation: 08/20
It’s at once an important milestone in the history of CG animation and butt ugly. It’s kind of like those early Renaissance paintings where Baby Jesus looks like Kuato from Total Recall. Yes, it paved the way for Michelangelo. But I don’t wanna look at it.
Main Character:08/20
Neutrons are so called because they have neither a positive nor a negative charge. They’re just there.
Villain: 09/20
The Yolkians have their moments.
Supporting Characters: 07/20
Bland, inoffensive and one-note.
Music: 10/20
My tolerance for early aughties pop is probably lower than yours but if you like that era and genre then there’s a lot to like on the soundtrack.
FINAL SCORE: 42%
NEXT UPDATE: 14 March 2024
NEXT TIME: Jeez, on the poster and next to Samuel L. Jackson no less. That cat must have one hell of an agent.
unshavedmouse 
This movie is more remembered for leading to a show that was among the most popular of Nick’s output in the 2000’s. Even as a youngling, I liked the Jimmy Neutron series way more than the movie. And when the series crossed over with Fairly Oddparents, I was in heaven.
But they’re practically the same character?
No lie, while trying to think of something I remember about this franchise, I vaguely recalled liking the character of Mark Chang and wondered if he was one of the Yolkians from this movie.
Nope, he’s a member of the resident stupid green blob alien race from Fairly Odd Parents.
I’m sure any major fans could go on and on about the nuances of these respective franchises, but in my brain they are interchangeable, with the only difference being that one is 2D and one is 3D, and one is fantasy and one is sci-fi, and I’d honestly need a minute to remember which pair of adjectives goes with which Nickelodeon cartoon.
nah, Jimmy is a mad genius in a little boy’s body. Timmy is a little shit, aka “average kid who no one understands”, with magical idiots who grant wishes for him.
and for any FOP Stans in the comments, his godparents called themselves “two halves of a whole idiot”, so don’t get on my case.
The early 2000’s was that point of my pre-teen existence where I figured I was too cool for cartoons (we’re all dumb at that age) and therefore missed this and its television series entirely. I kinda remember seeing rerun episodes on NickToons years later and all I can say is, “That took up a timeslot.”
These days I think its most lasting impact is that it spawned a fun meme pointing out the difference between salt and sodium chloride.
This may have been the first animated feature to be written at 2am in a Dennys, only hours before the studio pitch.
Would you believe it was in the works since at least the nineties?
I remember enjoying the movie, and watching most if not all of the subsequent tv show. I can’t say that I have any desire to go back and see if any of it holds up.
I saw it in theaters, and I have seen it twice since then. It is an interesting time capsule of 2001. It is short and good enough to work as a movie like that I watch every 10ish years. Granted, my deceased Mawmaw as of 2004 took me to see it in 2001, so it always makes me happy thinking of her, so I am not an unbiased judge.
The movie had a more creative and interesting TV show spin-0ff, and that is really why this is still in the pop conscience.
I do like that Jimmy is a bragging genius instead of a secret genius, as that made him way more relatable to me (I need to go send all my Jr. high and elementary classmates apologies).
Other than Guardians 3 I have not seen a single MCU film since Ant-Man 2, but I might borrow the Marvels from the library some day to see this spectacular badness I keep hearing about.
I saw this way back in the day when it came out! It left the undeniable impression that I have, in fact, seen it. I remember nothing else, and, in fact, I distinctly remember struggling to recall anything about it within a month
That said, are we really still doing the “Avatar had no cultural impact” baloney after the sequel was the highest-grossing movie of its year? If it truly had no cultural impact, that sucker would have crashed and burned. It would be accurate to say it had no impact on nerd culture, because Cameron very much did not make a sci-fi movie for nerds, he made a sci-fi movie for normies. And normies loved it, and, in my experience, would, in fact, bring it up as an example of a movie they loved the whole next decade.
I think we’ve just gotten used to movies with a big cultural impact jamming endless toys and spinoffs and sequels down our throat until we’re sick of it that it’s hard to see a movie that was just loved for being a movie and not being a franchise.
(Admittedly, I’m saying this from the point of view of someone who does, in fact, think both Avatar movies were terrific, so I may be somewhat biased.)
I think it’s not just a movie for normies but one for baby boomers and I don’t necessarily mean that in a derogatory way. The films are dealing with issues like Vietnam, 80s-90s style environmentalism, new age spirituality and a desire to play cowboys and Indians as the Indians that boomers find deep and meaningful while younger generations find cliched and shallow. I think there’s validity to both perspectives but we have to acknowledge both exist.
The TV show oddly spawned quite a lot of memes and supposedly was an absolute fever dream of an experience for the animators. I watched enough of it as a kid to somewhat fondly remember it, Sheen and Carl were always hilarious from what I can recall.
Also I am now dying of laughter at this related post. How many more from this list do you still have to cover Mouse?
Forgot to leave the link to the related post
https://unshavedmouse.com/2020/05/14/ive-got-a-little-list-ive-got-a-little-list/
I would actually love to hear your full thoughts on The Zone of Interest, I think it’s one if the best films of the decade so far
Hey, THE MARVELS has the good sense to know that you can’t be all progressive on a poster and deny Gingers their fair share of the representation! (Also, note that PUSS IN BOOTS did Numbers and the House of Mouse are All Business).
As it happens, this is one of the very first movies I can remember seeing in theaters, if I remember correctly on a class trip in kindergarten. I haven’t seen it since then, so your review brought up a lot of primordial memories for me. I watched the TV show quite often as a kid, but it was so crappy that even seeing it at an impressionable age hasn’t instilled me with much nostalgia for it.
By the way, what is it with Patrick Stewart accepting totally undignified voice roles?
I think it’s been noted (maybe on this very site, by Paper Alchemist?) that it’s a job celebs can do in their pajamas, usually without any retakes, for a fat paycheck.
Ah, the Marvels. I remember when it was a bomb and the usual suspects were all “that’s It, woke killed Disney”. It was later a reputable hit on Disney+ so, I have a simpler explanation.
When you make a movie which is the sequel to a 5 year old movie and to 3 series you only can watch in Disney+, your target demographic are people who hace Disney+. And those people know that in 3 months tops the movie will be there.
Given the important role Goose plays in the film’s climax, I’d say his placement in the poster is justified.
Knowing the King Goobot is voiced by Patrick Stewart means that this movie made better use of casting Patrick Stewart than any of the mainline Disney Animated canon films did.
The thing that stood out the most about the Jimmy Neutron movie was the time between the first trailer and the release in theaters. It was something like 8 months to a year and that felt like an eternity as a kid.
The series was fine. Took a few weird swerves later in the run but still had a handful of good episodes to justify its existence.
I just want to say first that I never expected you to actually review THIS movie! Which is mostly because growing up as a kid who treated Nickelodeon like life-blood, I never saw this movie as having much of an identity outside of being the pilot episode for the TV series basically. (So it’s amazing to realize as you pointed out, this was clearly a major influence on Chicken Little and Meet the Robinsons! What would we get if Disney’s top animators had been willing to sully themselves watching Nicktoon SHOWS?)
This is why it was honestly such a strange experience to watch it on Nickelodeon, mainly because, well, this storyline is about as epic as it gets, and it definitely plays it that way, but compared to all the casual outer space/alien adventures that came afterwards on the show (The Eggpire Strikes Back, A Beautiful Mine, The Junkman Cometh, Win, Lose, and Kaboom!), the plot is just so incredibly basic that it’s bizarre to see so much time spent on such a thin idea when much more complex problems were solved in 12 to 21 minutes on the show every week.
And more strangeness? The amount of time spent on showing off Jimmy’s inventions, that were typically taken for granted on the show itself. And the overly sentimental ending and moment with Cindy comforting Jimmy that is so sweet that she seems like a completely different character? Wells I can rarely if ever remember the show going to tap.
But viewing it now, as a grown man who hasn’t watched a single episode of the show for almost twenty years? It played out incredibly well. Yeah, this was great timing for my mom to gift me the 6-film collection of Nickelodeon movies just a week after this was posted. It wasn’t just coming off the borderline unwatchable dreck that is The Rugrats Movie (sure, trap toddlers and an infant in the most boring environment you can think of where there is nowhere for them to go for about fifty minutes, that’ll sustain a movie…..), the film is genuinely cinematic and pulled me in from beginning to end. NC put it best, the film just has charm, and there’s a commitment to its simplicity and innocence that really is infectious.
That said? As a kid, I was brought to awe by the sight of children showing the ingenuity to conquer space travel, something that took adults thousands of years to accomplish (they can do anything!), but as an adult? I just find myself wondering two things:
1 – Why the hell did he need to bring all those kids along?
2 – WHAT in the hell was their actual plan for getting their parents back from evil aliens advanced so far beyond man that they knew absolutely nothing about? Did they even stop to…. think that they should have one?!
Obviously, Neil has the easier job: he can just write sentences like “Jimmy realises that all their parents were abducted by aliens and converts all the rides of Retroland into a fleet of spaceships so that the kids can go and get them back” or “Jimmy busts the kids out of the dungeon and they race to the colosseum to save their parents. Jimmy highjacks a spaceship and they am-scray back to Earth with the Yolkian fleet in hot pursuit.” and we’ll nod our heads and say “Okay, that makes sense.” The filmmakers have to actually make us believe that they have characters who are actually doing these acts that could easily have entire movies dedicated to nothing but their inception to implementation.