{"id":652,"date":"2005-07-22T22:10:00","date_gmt":"2005-07-22T22:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/review-the-powerpuff-girls-movie\/"},"modified":"2005-07-22T22:10:00","modified_gmt":"2005-07-22T22:10:00","slug":"review-the-powerpuff-girls-movie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/review-the-powerpuff-girls-movie\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: The Powerpuff Girls Movie"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I enjoy the Powerpuff Girls animated TV show, but I&#8217;m by no means a hardcore fan.  I had no real desire to see this film, which I fully expected to be nothing more than a padded-out, gussied-up-with-better-animation TV episode.  But, when my friends pestered me to go opening weekend, I figured I&#8217;d be a sport. <\/p>\n<p>And I&#8217;m glad I got talked into going.  This movie was an altogether pleasant surprise, and I had a great time.  The writing was sharp and witty, and there are plenty of laughs for adults as well as the wee ones, and it has a well-developed plot.<\/p>\n<p>Plot, you say?<\/p>\n<p>Yes, indeed.  In this movie, we learn the details of The Powerpuff Girls&#8217; creation and their subsequent decision to become crimefighters.  We also learn that their arch-nemesis Mojo Jojo began life as a destructive little chimp in Professor Utonium&#8217;s laboratory; he becomes a supervillain when he is splashed with the same Chemical X that gives the girls their superpowers.<\/p>\n<p>The girls initially become pariahs after they gleefully lay waste to Townsville in a game of &#8220;Tag&#8221; that gets out of control after their first day of school.  Forced to walk home alone after the Professor is thrown in jail for their destructiveness, they encounter Jojo, who has become a hobo in a cardboard box.  Jojo tricks them into helping him create his headquarters and a laboratory to create an army of superintelligent monkeys (who, of course, rapidly get out of <i>his<\/i> control).<\/p>\n<p>The girls, of course, ultimately redeem themselves in their usual rambunctious manner after a soul-searching scene on a distant, chilly asteroid.  The puns and parodies come fast and furious along with the frenetic non-stop animated action.  Watch for lots of Planet of the Apes and King Kong references in the final battle sequences.<\/p>\n<p>A few of my favorite lines:  <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li> &#8220;It&#8217;s time to oppose the thumb!&#8221; <\/li>\n<li> &#8220;You&#8217;re not evil!  You&#8217;re just really dirty!&#8221; <\/li>\n<li> &#8220;There&#8217;s too many monkeys!&#8221; <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It&#8217;s a gem of a cartoon; if you have any liking for the TV show, I can almost guarantee you&#8217;ll have a lot of fun watching this.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><b>DVD update:<\/b><\/p>\n<p> We got the DVD of this movie pretty much the day it came out, and the extras make it worth at least renting if you enjoyed the movie. One slight downside (for some of us) is that the movie has apparently only been released in the full-screen version, although the outtakes are in widescreen. Fortunately, the aspect was not so wide that the movie&#8217;s composition is really harmed by the reduction.    <\/p>\n<p>For instance, there&#8217;s a gloriously off-color bit in the &#8220;deleted scenes&#8221; section.  It takes place when the mayor and the angry mob accost the professor as he leaves his house to pick up the girls.  The frame focuses on Sara Bellum&#8217;s ample cleavage, and then she slowly raises a wanted poster of the girls into the frame as she asks, &#8220;Are these <i>your<\/i> babies, Professor?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Other fun tidbits include gag interviews with the main characters and lots and lots of behind-the-scenes documentary segments.<\/p>\n<p>The movie has a high repeat-watchability factor.  We watched it twice in a row right out of the box due to housemates arriving home during the end credits and exclaiming, &#8220;Powerpuff Girls!  We wanna see, too!&#8221; so we started it over and I didn&#8217;t get sick of it.  However, upon the third viewing, I finally noticed the one real plot hole in the film:  why does the professor never notice his lab chimp&#8217;s gone missing?  Ah well, it&#8217;s still a fun movie.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h4>Movie Credits and Info<\/h4>\n<p><b>Running Time:<\/b>  1 hour, 20 minutes<\/p>\n<p><b>Release Date:<\/b> July 3, 2002<\/p>\n<p><b>Distributor:<\/b> Warner Brothers<\/p>\n<p><b>Director:<\/b> Craig McCracken<\/p>\n<p><b>Writers:<\/b>  Craig McCracken, Amy Keating Rogers, Don Shank<\/p>\n<p><b>Art Director:<\/b> Mike Moon<\/p>\n<p><b>Animation Director:<\/b> Genndy Tartakovsky<\/p>\n<p><b>Storyboard Artists:<\/b>  Charlie Bean, Lauren Faust, Craig McCracken, Paul Rudish, Don Shank<\/p>\n<p><b>Voice Cast:<\/b><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><b>Blossom:<\/b> Catherine Cavadini<br \/><b>Bubbles:<\/b> Tara Strong (Tara Charendoff)<br \/><b>Buttercup:<\/b> Elizabeth Daily  (E.G. Daily)<br \/><b>Mayor\/Narrator: <\/b>Tom Kenny<br \/><b>Mojo Jojo:<\/b> Roger L. Jackson<br \/><b>Professor Utonium:<\/b> Tom Kane<br \/><b>Ms. Keane:<\/b> Jennifer Hale<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>I enjoy the Powerpuff Girls animated TV show, but I&#8217;m by no means a hardcore fan. I had no real desire to see this film, <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/review-the-powerpuff-girls-movie\/\" title=\"Review: The Powerpuff Girls Movie\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[28,27,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie","category-movie-review","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8qT6f-aw","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":693,"url":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/movie-review-the-sum-of-all-fears\/","url_meta":{"origin":652,"position":0},"title":"Movie Review: The Sum of All Fears","author":"Lucy A. Snyder","date":"June 10, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"The Sum of All Fears is the fourth Tom Clancy story to make it to the big screen. This latest Clancy adaptation tells the tale of an Israeli tactical nuke which is lost to the desert sands due to a jet fighter crash. The nuke is later dug up by\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;movie&quot;","block_context":{"text":"movie","link":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/category\/movie\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":688,"url":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/movie-review-road-to-perdition\/","url_meta":{"origin":652,"position":1},"title":"Movie Review: Road to Perdition","author":"Lucy A. Snyder","date":"June 17, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Road To Perdition is a wonderful film based on a graphic novel of the same name written by Max Allan Collins and illustrated by Richard Piers Rayner. It immerses the viewer in six weeks of a fateful Depression-era winter in 1931 when a hitman's professional life and personal life come\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;movie&quot;","block_context":{"text":"movie","link":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/category\/movie\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":601,"url":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/movie-review-manhunter-vs-red-dragon\/","url_meta":{"origin":652,"position":2},"title":"Movie Review: Manhunter vs. Red Dragon","author":"Lucy A. Snyder","date":"October 20, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Director Michael Mann's Manhunter is among my favorite movies; this 1986 release was the first film based on Thomas Harris' novel Red Dragon. The studio opted not to use Harris' title because at that time his books were not as well known and they were afraid people would think it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;movie&quot;","block_context":{"text":"movie","link":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/category\/movie\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=lookwhatifoun-20&l=ur2&o=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":666,"url":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/movie-review-murder-by-decree\/","url_meta":{"origin":652,"position":3},"title":"Movie Review: Murder by Decree","author":"Lucy A. Snyder","date":"July 12, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Murder By Decree is a 1979 film directed by Bob Clark that was released on DVD in 2003. Previously, it wasn't even widely available on video. I encourage any of you who enjoy Sherlock Holmes movies (or who have any interest in Jack the Ripper) to rent this movie, because\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;movie&quot;","block_context":{"text":"movie","link":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/category\/movie\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":657,"url":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/movie-review-the-matrix-revolutions\/","url_meta":{"origin":652,"position":4},"title":"Movie Review: The Matrix Revolutions","author":"Lucy A. Snyder","date":"July 21, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Plot Summary This third chapter of The Matrix trilogy takes up where The Matrix Reloaded ended. The free people of Zion brace themselves for the imminent invasion of the machine hordes. Neo must figure out how to use his newly-discovered powers to try to save Zion on his own by\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;movie&quot;","block_context":{"text":"movie","link":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/category\/movie\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":721,"url":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/movie-review-underworld\/","url_meta":{"origin":652,"position":5},"title":"Movie Review: Underworld","author":"Lucy A. Snyder","date":"May 11, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"My husband and I rented the 2003 vampire\/werewolf action flick Underworld this evening, hoping for a bit of fun, entertaining eye candy. And while this movie provides plenty of pretty faces, taut bodies, cool special effects and kick-ass action sequences, when the closing credits rolled I was filled with an\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;movie&quot;","block_context":{"text":"movie","link":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/category\/movie\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}