The live-action Fairly Oddparents movie is awful! – CartoonClack

Let me make this clear — I love The Fairly Oddparents. For those not in the know, the silly Nickelodeon cartoon centers around a kid named Timmy and his loving fairy guardians — a sensible fairy godmother and an airhead fairy godfather — who counterbalance his bullying babysitter, sadistic teacher and oblivious parents. I was about 16 years old when the show first premiered. Right off the bat, I thought it was just as good if not better than Spongebob Squarepants, which debuted around the same time and was very popular with high schoolers for its kitchiness. But the rather silly story of Fairly Oddparents never disappointed me and is probably my favorite show from the new generation of Nicktoons. There have actually been a number of Fairy Oddparents specials/movies, including the Jimmy Neutron crossover specials, which were particularly clever in their execution. The live-action A Fairly Odd Movie: Grow Up, Timmy Turner! is not nearly as good as these older specials. It’s a piece of crap.

In this movie, Timmy (played by Drake Bell)  is turning 23, but still has his fairy godparents because he has refused to grow up. For this movie, growing up means either finishing school, moving out of his parents house or falling in love. That means at the age of 23, Timmy is still in 5th grade, still lives with his parents without a job and still finds girls icky. But wait, who comes back into his life? Why Tootie, the girl who liked Timmy as a kid. But now she’s hot, so of course Timmy starts to fall in love with her.

From here on in, Wanda and Cosmo start working to push the couple apart so they don’t have to leave him. Basically, Wanda and Cosmo choose to be complete assholes to him and his date. These are not the characters we’ve loved for ten years! Of course, the Wanda and Cosmo we know would not allow Timmy to fail school and mooch off his parents well into his twenties … well, Cosmo might, but not Wanda! There’s a moment early on when Timmy wishes his mean teacher would get explosive diarrhea (I know, classy), and the fairies are more than happy to oblige! You see their awful behavior best in a scene where they disguise themselves as friends of Larry David. Yep, Jason Alexander and Cheryl Hines come in for some worthless cameos. Seriously, it’s like the producers said, “We need two famous people who will say yes to practically any role.” “How about the guy who did Dunston Checks In and the woman who did Space Chimps 1 and 2?” “Perfect!” Not only are the jokes in this scene not funny in their writing or delivery, but Cosmo and Wanda’s meanness is so far out of character.

The fairies are some of the bigger problems with this special, but Tootie (played by Daniella Monet) is one of the worst love interests I’ve seen in a very long time. Talk about bland. Her only two characteristics are being prettier than her younger cartoon self and being an environmentalist. Yep, she’s fighting against an evil oil tycoon who dares to drill right in the middle of the town’s park. What a fiend! Were the writers really that strapped for ideas that they threw together a one-dimensional shady rich businessman?

Probably the only shining ray of hope is that Timmy’s dad is played by Daran Norris, who has voiced the cartoon-version of the character for the entirety of the series. Thanks to playing the character for so long, his physical acting was the least awkward. It’s too bad Timmy’s dad was barely in the movie. But guess who is in the movie far too much? Hugh J. Magnate, that evil oil tycoon played by Steven Weber. There’s an entire scene of Weber’s character doing stupid random crap that goes nowhere. Why focus so much of this special on such an awful character, especially since he’s not even one of the characters from the show?

This movie is centered around Timmy sacrificing his adulthood to keep his fairy godparents. In order to save Wanda and Cosmos from being used by the oil tycoon, Timmy accepts his adulthood and loses them as his godparents. The movie is about to end with him moving on with his life when BOOM! Fairyland lets him have his fairies back. So … this whole movie was pointless. It ends with Wanda and Cosmo’s baby saying his first words … in the voice of Randy Jackson. I’m pretty sure he used the word “Dawg.” Guys, this wasn’t funny in Bebe’s Kids, and it’s definitely not funny here.

More than anything, this doesn’t work because it’s life-action. Some of this stuff might have been enjoyable and even charming in the cartoon, but in live-action it just reeks of trying too hard. This movie’s run time is a little less than an hour, but it feels so, so much longer. It’s actually painful, especially for fans of the original show. If you really want to celebrate the 10 year anniversary of the show, go and watch any of the old episodes. Skip this crap.

Clacked by Katie Schenkel
on Aug 02, 2011 @ 13:00 EST5EDT