Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius

**Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius** is a 2001 American computer animated comedy science fiction film directed by John A. Davis. A Nickelodeon Movies production in conjunction with O Entertainment and his studio Dallas-based DNA Productions, the film was produced by Davis and was written by David N. Weiss. The movie follows the title character an extremely intelligent 10 year old boy who sets out to rescue his parents from rogue aliens. The film was released by Paramount Pictures on December 21, 2001, with a box office which has grossed over $103 million internationally.

## Plot

Jimmy Neutron, an 11-year-old boy genius, lives in Retroville with his parents, Judy and Hugh, and his robot dog, Goddard. Jimmy's friends are overweight Carl Wheezer and hyperactive Sheen Estevez, and he has a long-standing rivalry with his intelligent classmate, Cindy Vortex, who teases him for his small stature. After Jimmy launches a communications satellite into space in hopes to contact alien life, he crashes his makeshift rocket into his house's roof, upsetting his mother. When Jimmy, Carl and Sheen learn of the opening of Retroland, an amusement park, popular kid Nick Dean convinces the boys to sneak out and attend. Jimmy's mother Judy refuses to let him attend the park that night. After his jetpack accidentally starts a fire in the house, she grounds him. Taking Nick's advice, Jimmy uses his shrink ray invention to sneak out and meets Carl and Sheen at Retroland for a night of fun.

Meanwhile, Jimmy's satellite is intercepted by the Yolkians, a race of egg-like aliens from the planet Yolkus. Their leader, King Goobot, views Jimmy's message and takes notice of a picture featuring his parents, declaring his search complete. The Yolkians arrive on Earth and abduct all the adults in Retroville, except Miss Fowl because of her small size. As their ships return to space, Jimmy, Carl and Sheen mistake their departure for a shooting star, prompting Jimmy to wish their parents were gone. The next morning, all the children notice the parents are missing and party recklessly. The following day, the children are miserable and realize they need their parents. Jimmy learns that his satellite has been found and deduces the parents have been abducted. He enlists the children to create rocket ships out of Retroland's rides and they blast off into space after their families.

After braving a meteor shower and camping on an asteroid, Jimmy and company eventually reach Yolkus and find the parents with mind control devices attached to their heads. They are captured by Goobot, who reveals to the children that Jimmy had led them directly to Earth to take their parents, whom the Yolkians intend to sacrifice to their god, Poultra. Jimmy is separated from Goddard by Goobot's assistant, Ooblar, and is locked in a dungeon with the rest of the children, who blame Jimmy for their predicament. Taking pity on Jimmy, Cindy confesses she and the rest of the children need Jimmy and encourages him to set things right by helping them escape. Using a cellphone owned by Cindy's friend, Libby Folfax, Jimmy contacts Goddard, who escapes from Ooblar and breaks the children out.

Jimmy and company reach the Yolkians' colosseum where a giant egg is hatched, releasing Poultra, a gigantic three-eyed chicken. As Goobot arranges the parents to be eaten using a mind control remote, Jimmy rallies the children to storm the colosseum and battle the guards while Sheen retrieves an escape vessel, which knocks Poultra on the head upon his return. Jimmy steals the remote from Goobot and the children escape Yolkus with the parents. Goobot arranges a fleet to pursue them, which is all destroyed when the children fly their ship through the sun, save for Goobot's vessel. When Goobot and Ooblar tease Jimmy for his short size, Jimmy charges at Goobot's ship with Goddard in a flying bike form and uses his shrink ray to enlarge himself into the size of a planet. He then blows Goobot's vessel away into an asteroid, destroying it. Goobot survives and vows revenge. On the return trip to Earth, Jimmy reconciles with his parents, admitting that despite his intelligence, he still depends on them.

The next day, Jimmy and Carl have eggs in an egg cup for breakfast, when Jimmy’s parents drink one of his scientific experiments, which causes significant belching, thinking it is real soda can. And they all laugh out loud funny while Goddard is seen outside flying to chase a bird.

In the mid-credits scene, Jimmy's teacher, Mrs. Fowl (who is ant-sized because of Jimmy's shrink ray) is seen riding on an apple worm named Mr. Wiggles, on her way to the cafeteria in the elementary school hall.

## Good Qualities

1. The movie serves as a backdoor pilot to the Jimmy Neutron spin-off TV series, which also commenced a boatload of humorous internet phenomena, and this is also based on the Jimmy Neutron pilot shorts that aired on Nickelodeon from 1998-2001.
2. Memorable and memetic characters like Jimmy himself, Goddard, Jimmy’s parents (especially Hugh Neutron), Carl, Sheen, Cindy, Libby, Nick Dean, Ms. Fowl, Britney, and Ultra Lord.
3. Excellent vocal acting throughout the one hour and 22 minutes from Debi Derryberry, Rob Paulsen, Carolyn Lawrence, Frank Welker, Jeffrey Garcia, and Candi Milo.
4. Intense amount of radical jokes.
5. Excellent CGI animation, even for 2001 standards, which is very well animated by Sean Maynard using LightWave and Messiah.
6. Jimmy's inventions are pretty cool and clever like the Shrink Ray, his Jetpack, his rocket, and of course, Goddard.
7. The brain blast segments are awesome.
8. An out of this world plot that no one views in science fiction films like before, where aliens abduct the parents of the kids, and the kids head into space to the alien’s planet to save their parents.
9. Shows more expression than the follow up series.
	* A perfect example is when the children of Retroville were in the Yolkian’s cells, when Jimmy realizes that the parents getting abducted was his fault and his friends become bitter towards him. In his own separate cell, Jimmy starts crying, not just out of remorse, but also out of his own insecurities.
10. Grateful morals about parental guardians, as the children of Retroville, realize they would not survive without them, and in the end, they all happily reunite with their parents, especially Jimmy, who apologized to his parents for his behavior and happily embraced them.
11. Great dialogue such as **"I may be small, but I've got a big brain!"** and **"Oh, and by the way, Mom says you're grounded. *Sorry!*"**
12. Grown vocals for the juvenile cast were used in the correct fashion rather than having actual children voicing said characters.
	* It also uses adult voices for children the right way.
13. Has an extravagant charisma to all scenes wacky and serious, especially the scene where Jimmy uses his shrink ray’s growth setting, to grow into huge size and easily defeat King Goobot.
14. The antagonists, the Yolkians, mainly King Goobot V and Ooblar, were presented as sentient eggshell-type extraterrestrials with the yolk.
15. Earworm-worthy OST album including songs by Aaron Carter and alt-punk band Bowling for Soup, and their version of the theme song.

## Bad Qualities

1. Nearly all of the wording was used in the exact same typeface, which is viewed as somewhat tacky.
2. Some people may have looked at the cast modeling appearance as grotesque. Remember, this was at a time when CGI was a bit hard to master by many, and only Pixar could get it right.
3. Quite a few scenes that are implausible in real life science, i.e, how can Jimmy survive in outer space without an astronaut suit?
4. The gimmick involving Jimmy’s disproportionately large forehead is very off-topic since most of the child cast has these. Possibly nowhere almost shadowing him, however still somewhat huge.

## Reception

### Critical Response

*Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius* received generally positive reviews from critics and audiences. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 74% based on 76 reviews, with an average rating of 6.37/10. The critics' consensus reads: "What Jimmy Neutron lacks in computer animation, it makes up for in charm and cleverness." According to Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 65 out of 100 based on 21 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Rita Kempley of Washington Post praised the film, saying that "this little charmer both celebrates and kids the corny conventions of family sitcoms". Nell Minow of Common Sense Media enjoyed the "stylish 3-D computer animation, good characters", giving the film 3 out of 5 stars. Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave this film a grade of "B+", calling it "a lickety-split, madly packed, roller-coaster entertainment that might almost have been designed to make you scared of how much smarter your kids are than you". Paul Tatara of CNN.com called the film "the most delightfully original children's film of 2001". Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three stars out of four, saying that "it doesn't have the little in-jokes that make Shrek and Monsters, Inc. fun for grown-ups. But adults who appreciate the art of animation may enjoy the look of the picture".

### Box Office

The film was financially successful, grossing $13,833,228 on its opening weekend in third place behind The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and Ocean's Eleven and ended up with a total of $80,936,232 domestically, and the film did better overseas grossing $22,056,304 which made a total of $102,992,536 worldwide. It had a budget of roughly $30 million. It is one of only twelve feature films to be released in over 3,000 theaters and still improve on its box office performance in its second weekend, increasing 8.7% from $13,832,786 to $15,035,649.

## Trivia

* Coincidentally, Patrick Stewart and Martin Short also starred in *The Prince of Egypt*.
* A gentle dark ride "Planet of the Cats" is an obvious reference to Franklin J. Schaffner's 1968 film *Planet of the Apes*.
* One of the rides in Retroland, Eye in the Sky, has a scared kid's face with eyes wide open and his hands on his cheeks. That's the famous pose of Macaulay Culkin in *Home Alone* (which itself is a parody of the Edward Munch painting, The Scream). It is also the pose of Luigi in *mh:awesomegames:Luigi's Mansion*, released around the time of this film.
* During the scene when the kids are camping on the asteroid, Nick's story is from the 1999 film *The Blair Witch Project*.
* Jimmy and the other children battling the Yolkian guards is a reference to Agent J battling the giant alien cockroach to prevent him from going near the second spaceship at an abandoned World's Fair from the 1997 film *Men in Black*.
* The film is one of two Nickelodeon animated films to be nominated for an Academy Award. The other movie being 2011's *Rango*, which in fact won the Oscar for the best-animated feature of that year.
* Kevin Michael Richardson would have voiced Captain Spoor but his scenes were cut. He was shown in the theatrical trailer.
* In the theatrical trailer, Cindy said “If we blow up, whatever’s left of me is kicking your butt”, which would have taken place just before the kids lifted off from Retroland.

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## External Links

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