The promotion cycle for this film had me in its thrall, as a child. All calculated, of course - Nickelodeon planned this as a TV show, with the craven but thrifty goal of recycling the 3D models for a feature film. During production, focus instead shifted to launching a movie, then segueing into the show once the initial hype and home video release cycle had run its course.
As one watches Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius in 2025, the transparent and tawdry nature of it becomes exposed under modern scrutiny. This is not a film - it is an advertisement, a television pilot Viacom struck to celluloid and marketed as a film. Piped daily incessant advertising to kids on every possible channel - not just Nickelodeon! And if you were tuned into Nick, you were treated to channel-exclusive shorts every single commercial break, alongside TV spots for the film.
At the time, I didn't care. I was seven to nine, and it was a show about a smarmy little reject with a rocket ship and robot dog. His efforts blew up in his face, his friends were weirdos, and the cool kids hated him. Smart girls look at him as a rival and tried to one-up him at any point. If you were a young, white male who felt disenfranchised and misunderstood, this narrative was potent stuff. Potent enough for me to obsess over. Read the comics. Play the video game. Watch the show, beg for the toys. I was hooked. I wish I'd known better?
Maybe a Jimmy Neutron write-up in 2025 is not the place to do deep probes into gender norms, but of course, I think writer Steve Odenkirk's gender-biased, gag-based humor invites it. Here, the Kung Pow writer supervises a children's film, and frankly I can't imagine a worse fit. There are three or four sex jokes that I caught tucked away here, and while I'm far from a prude with kids being exposed to bawdy material, the way it's done here has that Nickelodeon house style of feeling... insidious.
Especially pernicious is the way that Cindy - the smarter, more capable, rational character - is consistently relegated to emotional support and goofy foil to Jimmy. The film sells us Jimmy as a scrappy underdog, names itself after him, but then shows us quite readily that he's nothing more than a stand-in for the all-guy writing room's male disenfranchisement. He has great ideas, they just don't all work out - see? Just stick with him. Jimmy's a good guy, they promise. Just don't make him mad, or he'll train a plant to kill you as amusement.
Jimmy Neutron is, frankly, how America bred a generation of Elliot Rodgers. It makes casual light of Jimmy's incessant desire to murder-breed Cindy, while weakening her character and moral disposition to make her ultimately subservient to the titular boy genius.
What's curious, to me, is that a better show with a near-identical premise exists, has a predominately male creative crew, and manages to avoid all of these pitfalls. I'm talking, of course, about Dexter's Laboratory - a wonderful little television show and a classic of the medium. Dexter is in love with science, with the process, with the trial-and-error of his experimentation. Yes, he has antagonism towards girls like a normal boy, but that doesn't mean he also won't make a total fool of himself trying to impress one and failing miserably. The writers know that Dexter is a little weirdo, and try to find grace for them where they can.
The writers of Jimmy Neutron seem to think that Jimmy is the next Musk, and based on the way he treats Cindy, perhaps they're correct. Frankly, the comparison is more apt than ever: his inventions fail, he steps on the toes of the government, and his creations wind up making a massive pain for the collective. Early on, Jimmy hops to school in a stupid bubble gum travel contraption when he's late for the bus. Cindy, quite snottily, taunts him from the window - "they already invented the bus!"
After this, Jimmy crashes, Cindy taunts him more, and the bus drives off. We're left to linger on Jimmy cleaning up his mess as sympathetic and light music plays before another incessant needle drop. In this moment, we are meant to empathize with the myopic egghead who would rather bounce to school in the stench of his own saliva than ride the bus with other children. Why? Cindy's right - they did already invent the bus. And frankly, people like Jimmy are better served trying to improve buses, not come with stupid new ways to travel that ultimately only service as massive safety hazards.
This is the sort of film Jimmy Neutron is, though. It creates the most unlikable character imaginable as wish fulfillment for the seven year boys its middle-aged male creatives wished they had been. Oh, to give their mothers fire extinguisher cum shots and seduce them with flowers. Oh, to try and murder the girl across the street, then be consoled by her in a time of need. Aren't these normal things to want?
And it would be tolerable, maybe, if the film itself wasn't such an absolute eyesore. But this is artless prototyping, at best. At no point does this film feel keyframed, storyboarded, thought out. Grotesque, barely animated characters gesticulate and gyrate through sterile, empty environments in stasis. Judy Neutron's hair clips through door frames, and fuzzy textures get zoomed in on way too close.
People these days like to talk down on Shrek - one of the greatest films of the 21st century - and how dated its animation looks now. Perhaps, sure, the fidelity and detail is nowhere near what animators and rendering farms are capable of now. But why that picture is a film, and why Jimmy Neutron is a product, comes down to artistry. Shrek is composed like a true work of art, with impressive mise en scene and clever animation tricks to maximize frames while allowing for the most detail on its central models as possible. When watched now, it's 'dated,' but it is nevertheless a dated film, not a dated product.
Not so for Neutron, whose existence is owed to a tech demo from the '80s and the guy who made fucking Thumb Wars. Shrek's marketing was earned - they had a good picture. Jimmy Neutron was forced down the throat of American children as adults had to sit idly by and watch, desperate for any distraction after 9-11. I'm not really upset about any of this, of course. There are a lot more pressing issues to be bothered by than a kids movie from a dead IP that's pressing 25. Jimmy Neutron is not, truly, "that deep." However, it is proof to myself that nostalgia has limits, and ultimately, we must challenge our greatest childhood loves if we're ever to truly grow as people.
(I'm sure the THQ PC game I played every day of my life holds up better... Right?)