The Powerpuff Girls Movie: C+

Let me start by saying I am a HUGE Powerpuff Girls fan — I even have the Powerpuff Girls waffle iron. Honestly, the film was quite a letdown.

The movie is actually a prequel to the cartoon TV show (boy, prequels were popular this summer). The film chronicles how Townsville resident Professor Utonium (voiced by Tom Kane) created three kindergarten-aged super heroes known as Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup (Cathy Cavadini, Tara Strong and Elizabeth Daily) in his laboratory. The girls' first day of school, the discovery of super-powers, their becoming the Powerpuff Girls, etc are all here. More importantly there is an after-school special message on fitting in when everyone else considers them "freaky bug-eyed things." Of course the story also reveals the origin of Mojo Jo-Jo Roger L. Jackson), the mad monkey bent on taking over the city of Townsville and eventually the world.

It was really refreshing to see the girls all huge on a movie screen. Just the image of the girls makes me giggle, so seeing their enormous heads on a movie screen made me pretty giddy. Visually, the film hits a high point in an action packed game of tag played between the girls which wreaks havoc to the city. Scenes like that make the TV show so enjoyable, but the movie doesn't have enough scenes like it to keep the energy up. The film is actually sort of gloomy, which would be greater with scenes of action-packed contrast. Although the movie is only 87 minutes in length, the film seems kind of tedious when based on a 22-minute cartoon that usually contains two separate stories.

A steady complaint from Powerpuff Girls fans is against the creators' deciding to show origins rather than just making a movie that takes place within the normal TV show timeline. I agree. This film will not convert anyone, because the enjoyable things from the TV show had to be left out in setting everything up. The cheesy voice-overs with bad one-liners by a very characteristic unseen narrator are in the movie, but not enough to keep me smiling. The drawn out story of origins and acceptance take too long to tell and leave no room for plots like the girls fighting the kid in class who eats the glue (that really was a TV episode).

In general I think the creators wanted to market the film directly to children and left a lot of the adult one-liners and observational humor out. Big mistake. Little girls come and go with Powerpuff Girls, but the true fans are 25-year old slackers like me.

The Powerpuff Girls Movie has a pretty enjoyable "Dexter's Laboratory" short at the front of it where Dexter must deal with chickenpox.