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Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer
| Released |
21 October 2011 |
| Director |
John Schultz |
Starring
|
Jordan Beatty, Heather Graham, Preston Bailey, Parris Mosteller, Kristoffer Winters, Garrett Ryan, Jaleel White |
| Writer(s) |
Kathy Waugh, Megan McDonald |
Producer(s)
|
Gary Magness, Sarah Siegel-Magness |
| Origin |
United States |
| Running Time |
91 minutes |
| Genre |
Comedy, family |
| Rating |
PG |
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Moody Blues.
Judy Moody (Jordana Beatty) is not a happy bunny. She’s determined to have a great summer with lots of adventures but two of her friends are going away. Rocky (Garrett Ryan) is off to circus camp and Amy (Taylor Hender) is off to Borneo. That just leaves her geeky pal Frank (Preston Bailey). Judy had planned a complicated series of ‘dares’ for which they’d all earn ‘thrill points’ with a winner to be declared at the end. But without her friends, how can she hold the competition?
Worse still, her parents (Janet Varney and Kristoffer Winters) have to leave for the summer too so she’s stuck at home with her annoying brother ‘Stink’ (Parris Mosteller). He’s become obsessed with finding Big Foot. Things look up though when her Aunt Opal (Heather Graham) arrives to look after them both while their parents are away. Opal turns out to be a kooky hippie-type and Judy decides to attempt her thrill-seeking game with her instead.
Dragging the long-suffering Frank along with her, she attempts to walk a tightrope, surf a wave, go on a big roller coaster among other tasks. All her efforts end in failure though and eventually she ends up taking over Stink’s mission to find Big Foot. All the while she also tries to spot her teacher Mr. Todd (Jaleel White), who has set his children a challenge to find him in his summer job.
Based on the series of children’s books by Megan McDonald, who co-writes the screenplay, this is a somewhat curious film and it’s difficult to see who it’s aimed at. Older children might appreciate the crude set-pieces involving vomit and dog-excrement but will hardly appreciate the safe, bland humour. Younger children will probably take to the gentle humour but will their parents be happy to bring them to a film with gross-out scenes more suited to a Hangover sequel?
Visually it looks good and there’s some interesting rhyming dialogue which comes and goes. Also, the performances of the young cast are perfectly acceptable and Jordana Beatty is an appealingly unconventional lead for a children’s film. The adult actors fare less well though and poor Heather Graham looks like she’d work for food stamps at this stage.
It’s not an unwatchable abomination like Mr. Popper's Penguins but you do wonder what the point of it is. As it bombed in the US, it’s unlikely there will be a sequel so we probably will never find out.
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Jim O’Connor |
