I really want to say this movie rocks, because the show itself has so many scenes that inspire that sentiment, as does the movie. But overall, this movie is not enough. I remembered it as being just as much a letdown, but I was surprised this morning watching the DVD by how many times I literally laughed out loud. The initial scene where the girls destroy Townsville is wonderfully extreme, disaster piling upon disaster like a Pink Panther movie or something. And the idea of doing a prequel to the series as the main story rather than a few episodes strung together to length as so often happens with this kind of thing is interesting. What’s bizarre is that Craig McCracken chooses to cover the actual physical creation of the Powerpuff Girls so quickly, in a short, but effective, title sequence. This could easily have been extended to up to 10 minutes longer.

But, at least it’s as good as the series which is saying a lot. I can’t quite imagine seeing it on the big-screen, though. It still looks like a TV animation – or even, a web-based Flash animation, which I’m sure can’t be far from the truth. Not that I’d like it any other way, because the solid outlines are part of the whole style of The Powerpuff Girls. It just feels like it’s lacking something when presented as a feature length movie.

The DVD is merely okay – one I’m glad I only rented and didn’t buy when I saw it a few months ago. There are cast interviews (literally, newly created animations of Blossom, Bubbles, Buttercup, Mojo Jojo, the Mayor… and, if you let the Mayor interview run on, a cut extra, which is slightly funny), and a very short documentary which I appreciated since you get to see Tara Strong and the other voice cast in front of the microphone doing the voices. I love this on any animation DVD, but here, where the voices sound so much like they must be enhanced, pitch-shifted or whatever, it’s particularly interesting (there’s no enhancement, it seems). That’s all you get though. Average DVD for a technically average movie… but if you’re a Powerpuff Fan, it’s all must-have.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 20th, 2004 at 8:30 pm in 3 hearts, Movie Reviews and tagged as animation, cuties, TV. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.