Rating:  

Starring: Jordana Beatty, Heather Graham, Preston Bailey, Parris Mosteller, Kristoffer Ryan Winters, Janet Varney, Garrett Ryan, Jaleel White, Ashley Boettcher, Taylar Hender, Cameron Boyce, Jackson Odell, Robert Constanzo, Sharon Sachs.
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Director: John Schultz
Rating: PG
Running Time: 91 Mins.
Release Date: June 10, 2011
Home Video Date: October 11, 2011
Box Office: $15.0 Million
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Reel FX Creative Studios, Smokewood Entertainment Group, and Relativity Media.

Written by: Kathy Waugh and Megan McDonald, adapted from the “Judy Moody” book series by Megan McDonald.

Adapted from an incredibly popular and award-winning series of children’s books, “Judy Moody and the NOT Bummer Summer” is a hybrid of several of the books’ stories and themes wrapped into one convenient feature film. Starring energetic newcomer Jordana Beatty in the title role, the film really wants you to like it, but is so exhausting that anything remotely fun about it is lost in the sugar coma it brings on.

The premise is a simple one. School is out and third grader Judy (Jordana Beatty) and her three best friends – Rocky, Frank, and Amy are ready for summer. Judy, born of limitless hyperkinetic energy it seems, has set her focus on ensuring that she and her friends have the greatest summer ever. She has concocted an elaborate scoreboard of sorts to document everyone’s progress and the goal is to acquire “Thrill Points” based on completing a summer’s worth of risky and daring challenges.

The idea is met with a muted response as Rocky (Garrett Ryan) is heading off to a summer-long circus camp, and Amy (Taylar Hender) is accompanying her family on a trip to Borneo (?!). All that leaves is Frank (Preston Bailey) and Judy…and Judy’s brother, Stink (Parris Mosteller). Oh, the best laid plans.

Judy and Frank try to have an exciting summer but it soon becomes difficult to earn Thrill Points and compete with the exciting adventures that Rocky and Amy are having. Plus, complicating matters, Stink is using the summer to obsess and search for the elusive Bigfoot, as a rash of sightings of the famed beast have sparked worry in Judy’s hometown.

The film is a manic and frenzied mess from virtually the opening sequence to the moment that Heather Graham’s Aunt Opal arrives. Graham is a welcoming presence here for awhile and things temper down briefly when she, Judy, and Stink acclimate to her arrival. Opal is a free spirit, a vagabond, who wins her niece and nephew over the moment she sets foot in the Moody home. Conveniently and illogically, Opal has been called to stay with Judy and Stink for the entire summer because Judy’s parents must take care of an ailing parent. It is perhaps telling that Stink and Judy are not at all concerned about their seriously ill grandparent, not when the charismatic and carefree Opal may deliver the bestest sumMER EVER!!!!

To tear apart “Judy Moody and the NOT Bummer Summer” is a little too easy and a bit unnecessary. Jordana Beatty is an engaging young talent but is left unchecked and overacts so often that you start to wonder if the young girl received any direction at all. Graham is good here, but is hardly the actress to save a film so hopelessly mired in an unrestrained sugar-high. There is hardly anything else memorable here, except the wasted cameo of Jaleel White (Urkel from 1990′s TV series, “Family Matters”), and a movie-long subplot involving Bigfoot and Stink, which is tossed away in a 10-second exchange of dialogue.

My 12-year old daughter was my expert on all of this, as she has read all of the books and the Stink spinoff series as well. She was entertained, although not impressed. I, on the other hand, became quite amazed at how flat and messy the whole production looked from start to finish. If you want to tell me that the film deserves a pass because it is made to resemble the mind and temperament of a third grader, then I accept your view.

But riddle me this. With no disrespect intended to any and all of the 8- and 9-year old aspiring filmmakers around the world, would anyone in their right mind want to sit down and watch a 90-minute film shot, edited, and presented by a 8- or 9-year old kid? If you answer yes, then disregard everything I have told you and knock yourself crazy.

For the rest of us, and those of us who are parents looking to engage our young ones for 90 minutes, go outside. Or if you want to provide a Judy Moody experience, crack open a “Judy Moody” book and read it with your children. After all, reading is fundamental, right?

SHOULD I SEE IT?

Fans of the book series will be excited to see how the film looks on the big screen.

This is not the worst film ever made or anything so if you can withstand the assault of fast talking, frenzied dialogue, and senseless scenes lined up alongside one another, then Heather Graham may calm you enough to get through this with your kids.

You ingest massive amounts of sugar and see the world through hyperactive eyeballs.

NO

Read the books instead; or, perhaps more appropriately, encourage your kids to read the books.

There are so many better and more rewarding family films that everyone can sit through.

John Schultz is not a good filmmaker and perhaps Jordana Beatty can find her apparent natural abilities channeled in another production or series that takes advantage of her comedic sensibilities.