Based on the hit animated action cartoon from The Cartoon Network in America, Professor Utonium is the focus of this feature as we delve into his life and learn how he created the disc-eyed crime-fighting tots Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup. Along with their origin finally being told, we also learn how they accepted their superpowers and learned how to use them for good. Alongside the Girls, an evil is looming in the darkness, an evil mastermind genius chimp named Mojo Jojo, who uses the girls’ naiveté for his evil master plan.
I loved the television series with its bright energy, sharp wit, and excellent action, which is a crushing disappointment that the feature film is so bad. “The Powerpuff Girls” just don’t translate well to the big screen, and their adventures for the theaters feel like a stretched out episode of their television show. I was bored by this big screen adaptation and I simply was having no fun enduring the origin of the girls and their arch enemy Mojo. While the climax is great as the girls who are outcasts at first witness the chaos of Mojo’s plan and decide to use their powers to kick butt, it’s a small pro in a massive botched adaptation. The movie just doesn’t measure up to the series which presented a sense of brevity and a quick pace that helped the show’s entertainment factor.
The narrative in the movie tends to drag on as we get to know the girls’ and their personalities, offering no real complexity or entertainment. For a first feature film I would have loved to see the hilarity from the original series yet the movie feels pedestrian with sub-par effects. This would have been much better had it been reduced to a one hour episode on television rather than a stretched feature film. It’s really long and seemed to go on forever for a movie that is only and hour and ten minutes. And really the first ten minutes are just a short cartoon featuring Dexter from the other hit show “Dexter’s Laboratory.” It’s poor animated effort from the creators of the series in an attempt to make money off this franchise. Long and winded, “The Powerpuff Girls Movie” didn’t work for this fan and caused me to retreat back to the classic episodes.