Hey Arnold!: The Movie

Spawned from the animated Nickelodeon series about a "football-headed kid" and the denizens of his oddball urban neighborhood, this weakly scripted adventure finds Arnold and his pals trying to stop a developer from tearing down their block to build a mega-mall. Like most of the recent profit-mongering features made from still-in-production TV kiddie cartoons (Pokemon, The Rugrats Movie, Recess: School's Out, etc.), Hey Arnold! takes sloppy narrative short-cuts, ignores gaping holes in the plot, and rushes right past what should be important parts of the story, focusing more on celebrity voices than credible storytelling. And it's boring to boot: the mantra behind the project seems to have been "it's just a kids' flick" (translation: "we don't need to try very hard"). Not recommended. (R. Blackwelder)