A week or so ago, I watched the made-for-TV, live-action Disney Channel original movie version of Kim Possible. The cartoon, which aired on Disney Channel from 2002-2007 was one of my favorite shows growing up, and I wanted to see if the movie would do it justice, or if the cartoon should be re-imagined as a theatrical live-action movie instead. Overall, I was not impressed when they announced it as ‘made for TV.’ I initially did not want to see it, but since I wanted to make my own version I thought I should watch so I could see how to make it better.
The TV version did do some things right. Casting Patton Oswalt as Professor Dementor was a big plus. Oswalt played the part on the original show and did a great job. Kim Possible’s signature ring tone was in the movie and that was big. Incorporating the theme song was a good thing. I thought it was important to recognize the significance of the music from the original show. Also, they kept in her catch-phrase, ‘what’s the sitch?’. They got the design of Rufus, the naked mole rat right, and they had Wade, the Computer Genius, from the show make an appearance and he was ok too. Kim’s family was generally well-represented in the movie. And Kristy Carleson Romero, the original voice of Kim Possible, had a nice cameo in the movie and that was not bad. That’s where most of the good stuff ends.
Unfortunately, the movie overall was terrible. It just ruined my childhood the way some Star Wars fans say ‘The Phantom Menace ruined my childhood.’ The action scenes are boring and low budget. The special effects look like they came from a special effects app on my iPad. Even when you see someone getting impaled or getting smashed or falling down, there’s no blood. I want the blood splatters! This is live-action, where’s the gritty reboot stuff? The CGI was very shaky. The CGI characters looked like muppets and not very realistic. The special effects in the upcoming live-action Pokemon movie, Detective Pikachu, look much better than this. The fight scenes were too gimmicky. It looks like they abused the ‘bullet-time’ technique from The Matrix to make up for bad fight choreography.
There were a lot of problems with the other characters. Dr. Drakken’s voice was so annoying. He sounded like a wannabe Allen Rickman. Shego looked like somebody cosplaying Shego, rather than the real thing. Most of the characters looked like Party City versions of themselves. They were not true to the original vision. Kim Possible doesn’t look like herself, either. They changed her outfit and it doesn’t work. She looks like an apocalyptic stripper. You know how in the show Kim Possible is a cheerleader? That’s all gone now. And her high school Rival, Bonnie, is insulting and seems very pointless.
And then there’s Ron Stoppable. At least they got his voice right, but he was cast all wrong. He was too over-the-top. It’s like Johnny Depp in Dark Shadows. They tried so hard to make him funny that he wasn’t funny at all. And they got Rufus’ back-story wrong. In the show, Ron’s parents had allergies and they said Ron could get a pet as long as he had no fur, and when Ron went to Smarty Mart, he found Rufus. The movie skipped over all of that, and it took away from the importance of Rufus’ character.
They added a new character, Athena. I don’t want to give away too much, but her character is a dreaded Mary Sue-type that people complain about in other movies. And she wasn’t even in the cartoon.
The designs of some of the sets like Bueno Nacho are all wrong. Kim’s cell-phone Kimmunicator is all wrong too. This time they changed it to a hologram necklace, and that’s not how it should be. They took away too many things that I love about Kim Possible and made it too campy. I think Kevin Smith would have done a much better job with this movie, considering that he almost did a Superman movie at some point. Also, the movie needs a much bigger budget and a dark, gritty, PG-13 version. This movie looks like a direct-to-video version of a Michael Bay Transformers movie. I can’t wait to see Captain Marvel to get my mind off of it.
I give it a 2.5 out of 10.
That’s all for now. See you at the movies!
The TV version did do some things right. Casting Patton Oswalt as Professor Dementor was a big plus. Oswalt played the part on the original show and did a great job. Kim Possible’s signature ring tone was in the movie and that was big. Incorporating the theme song was a good thing. I thought it was important to recognize the significance of the music from the original show. Also, they kept in her catch-phrase, ‘what’s the sitch?’. They got the design of Rufus, the naked mole rat right, and they had Wade, the Computer Genius, from the show make an appearance and he was ok too. Kim’s family was generally well-represented in the movie. And Kristy Carleson Romero, the original voice of Kim Possible, had a nice cameo in the movie and that was not bad. That’s where most of the good stuff ends.
Unfortunately, the movie overall was terrible. It just ruined my childhood the way some Star Wars fans say ‘The Phantom Menace ruined my childhood.’ The action scenes are boring and low budget. The special effects look like they came from a special effects app on my iPad. Even when you see someone getting impaled or getting smashed or falling down, there’s no blood. I want the blood splatters! This is live-action, where’s the gritty reboot stuff? The CGI was very shaky. The CGI characters looked like muppets and not very realistic. The special effects in the upcoming live-action Pokemon movie, Detective Pikachu, look much better than this. The fight scenes were too gimmicky. It looks like they abused the ‘bullet-time’ technique from The Matrix to make up for bad fight choreography.
There were a lot of problems with the other characters. Dr. Drakken’s voice was so annoying. He sounded like a wannabe Allen Rickman. Shego looked like somebody cosplaying Shego, rather than the real thing. Most of the characters looked like Party City versions of themselves. They were not true to the original vision. Kim Possible doesn’t look like herself, either. They changed her outfit and it doesn’t work. She looks like an apocalyptic stripper. You know how in the show Kim Possible is a cheerleader? That’s all gone now. And her high school Rival, Bonnie, is insulting and seems very pointless.
And then there’s Ron Stoppable. At least they got his voice right, but he was cast all wrong. He was too over-the-top. It’s like Johnny Depp in Dark Shadows. They tried so hard to make him funny that he wasn’t funny at all. And they got Rufus’ back-story wrong. In the show, Ron’s parents had allergies and they said Ron could get a pet as long as he had no fur, and when Ron went to Smarty Mart, he found Rufus. The movie skipped over all of that, and it took away from the importance of Rufus’ character.
They added a new character, Athena. I don’t want to give away too much, but her character is a dreaded Mary Sue-type that people complain about in other movies. And she wasn’t even in the cartoon.
The designs of some of the sets like Bueno Nacho are all wrong. Kim’s cell-phone Kimmunicator is all wrong too. This time they changed it to a hologram necklace, and that’s not how it should be. They took away too many things that I love about Kim Possible and made it too campy. I think Kevin Smith would have done a much better job with this movie, considering that he almost did a Superman movie at some point. Also, the movie needs a much bigger budget and a dark, gritty, PG-13 version. This movie looks like a direct-to-video version of a Michael Bay Transformers movie. I can’t wait to see Captain Marvel to get my mind off of it.
I give it a 2.5 out of 10.
That’s all for now. See you at the movies!
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