In this far-fetched “kids movie,” Alex D. Linz plays Max Keeble, a local paperboy who goes about his business delivering papers and is in constant battle with the evil “Ice Cream Man” played aptly by Jamie Kennedy. He now enters a new phase in his life: Junior High School. Now he has a crush on the local neighborhood girl, is constantly terrorized by the school bullies and the crooked school principal played by Larry Miller. But a new event has developed. His father who works for an advertising company is now being relocated to Chicago to start a new campaign. Now Keeble wants to leave the town in style with the help of his two best friends.
He now seeks revenge on all the people who have scorned him in his stay in the town. Oh boy, is this a doozey. I don’t know if this can even be considered a children’s movie, because some of the movie’s plot devices are at times so mean-spirited that I wouldn’t know if I would show this to a ten year old. The entire movie is so mean-spirited and sophomoric that, at times, it’s painful to watch. We get introduced to a bunch of characters that are so farfetched. We have the Ice cream man who terrorizes the kids by trying to run them down and hitting them with projectile scoops of ice cream: how is it this man isn’t in jail?
There’s the local bully who looks like he should be a senior in high school but instead is a senior in junior high (who shows who he’s going to beat up next by writing the person’s name on his chest). We also have the school principal who is crooked and often threatens the children. And we’re presented with many other dislikable and putrid characters that are terrible to watch. We also have an uncharismatic lead character that is just hard to believe as a hero, and many other supporting characters that are one-dimensional and equally unlikable. The movie’s many plot devices are contrived and filled many recycled movie tropes. “Max Keeble’s Big Move” fails to deliver and is just a terrible watch. Don’t make your kids watch this violent, mean spirited movie.