| Reviewer Roundup |
| 1. |
 | Steve Rhodes |
| review follows |
|  |
| 2. |
| Susan Granger |
| read the review |
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Review by Steve Rhodes
1 star out of 4
Nickelodeon's HEY ARNOLD! THE MOVIE is another one of those slipshod productions
delivered to the theaters in hopes of cashing in on the lucrative summer movie
market for kids. Offering little more than a needlessly extended version of a
mediocre television series, the movie has such little appeal that it will likely
produce the same effect on your kids that it did on the tykes in our large
audience -- it lulled many of them to sleep. You could see heads nodding off
all over the place. Only an explosive finale woke the kids and caused a small
burst of laughter.
The lead for the series is a strange looking kid named Arnold (voiced by Spencer
Klein). With a "football head," yellow hair that appears parted like the Red
Sea and a mouth that floats from side to side like a pair of loose dentures,
Arnold is only one of many strangely drawn characters in the show.
The minimal plot provides the canonical and questionable cartoon message that
businesses are always big, bad and out to exploit the environment. The story
this time concerns an evil conglomerate named Future Tech Industries (FTi) that
is about destroy the neighborhood. Arnold and friends try to stop FTi's CEO
Scheck (voiced by Paul Sorvino) by organizing protests and even dynamiting the
street in order to stop his bulldozers.
"Losers!" Arnold's friend Helga (voiced by Francesca Smith) yells at Arnold and
his buddies when she gets angry at them. You'll be a loser if you chose HEY
ARNOLD! THE MOVIE over much better fare like LILO & STITCH.
HEY ARNOLD! THE MOVIE runs a very long 1:16. It is rated PG for "some thematic
elements" and would be acceptable for all ages.
My son Jeffrey, age 13, gave it no stars whatsoever. He said that it was
seventy-six minutes of boredom and that the plot was almost non-existent.
Copyright © 2002 Steve Rhodes
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out of 4
