Overall Rating
  Awesome: 40.85%
Worth A Look: 4.23%
Just Average: 22.54%
Pretty Crappy: 8.45%
Sucks: 23.94%
2 reviews, 59 user ratings
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| Lizzie McGuire Movie, The |
by Greg Muskewitz
"Breaking the mold from what made the TV enjoyable."
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Quick to capitalize on one of its assets, now that the 65-episode cap of “Lizzie McGuire” has been fulfilled, Disney has turned around and popped out a pay-per-view version.Picking up where the show left off, the extension trails Lizzie and friend Gordo with graduation from middle school and a class trip to Rome. (The third friend, Miranda, has been mysteriously written out with the excuse that she’s in Mexico City.) In other words, a big screen adventure and a budget open up some new space in which to gambol. The threadbare plot in Rome has Lizzie meeting and falling for an Italian pop star, half of a former dyad, of whom she is a replica of the ex-member. (Only difference: one’s a blonde, the other’s a brunette.) While Gordo covers for her from the bulldog chaperone, Lizzie is being trained to perform in her double’s part, as the double. One of the problems that prevents The Lizzie McGuire Movie from working like its television counterpart is the extra space in which it has to roam. Lizzie’s world is no longer just that of home and school — already enough to ground the insecure goofball and her animated alter-ego — but now she’s out in the real world (well, a simplified, Disney-fied version of it), one that the lack of realism does not cover in all its broadness. A portion of her appeal is still there, but the ever-present fantasy elements are paramount, tilted and swayed from outside influences that pop the magic bubble of Lizzie’s inner-world, which is straying from the conspectus it tries to duplicate elsewhere. Another issue from TV show to movie (and, having young sisters, I am quite familiar with the show, and pleasantly enough entertained by it) is crucial in that established characters are ignored and missing. Sure, Gordo, Ethan and Kate have minimal roles, and even though the show and movie are titled for Lizzie, her solo effort does not fly alone — it’s a group effort. To throw that out is to throw out much of its charm, and in return for what? Hilary Duff to take on a double role and help launch her alternate singing career, a twinge of a variation on a more conservative and pop-youthy Madonna? And what kind of message is Disney emulating by Lizzie’s duplicity in sneaking off, her fraudulent behavior as “Isabella,” not only signing autographs in her name, but also willing to perform publicly as her? It merely takes a minor suggestion from her potential boyfriend before she goes running with it. (Italians can be slick, but not that slick, and the movie doesn’t portray them as anything but clodpates.) But I acquiesce; the actors do retain enough of their charisma for a mildly pleasant 90-minutes, perky and spry. And the kids (apparently, as well as some teens) who this is aimed for (see: naďve) will fittingly be satisfied, if for the wrong reasons, insomuch as the stretch it makes is not enough to snap the elasticity or break the mold. My sisters, notwithstanding their attention being asked for longer and without commercial interruption, enjoyed it with a minimum of questions. It would have been nicer if it could have better been in the spirit of the series. Though one can’t help but wonder what the director of Trick and the co-writers of There’s Something about Mary and Head Over Heels are doing with this Disney kid’s movie.
Directed by Jim Fall. With Adam Lamberg, Clayton Snyder, Ashlie Brillault, Jake Thomas, Robert Carradine, Hallie Todd, Yani Gellman, Carly Schroeder and Alex Borstein.[See it if you must.]
link directly to this review at http://hollywoodbitchslap.com/review.php?movie=7574&reviewer=172
originally posted: 12/28/03 05:44:01
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USA
02-Mar-2003 (PG)
UK
N/A
Australia
26-Jun-2003
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