Post by StevePulaski on Nov 28, 2017 11:00:30 GMT -5
Hey Arnold!: The Jungle Movie (2017)
Directed by: Raymie Muzquiz
Directed by: Raymie Muzquiz
Arnold, Gerald, Helga, and other kids of the neighborhood come together for one more bonafide Hey Arnold! adventures.
Rating: ★★★
Here's a fun story for 2017: on November 24th, hundreds of thousands of millennials, many of whom in college or even married, tuned into Nickelodeon for the first time since Drake & Josh was cancelled to watch a continuation of one of their favorite TV shows in the form of a film sequel. There's reason to believe significantly less children under thirteen tuned into Nickelodeon that night than people over their age. What those viewers got was beyond their expectations.
Hey Arnold!: The Jungle Movie arrives fifteen years after the last episode of the long-running series ended and the Tuck Tucker-directed film that saw a theatrical release the same year. Hey Arnold! creator and executive producer of this film, Craig Bartlett, has been a long-time fan's dream in terms of keeping his adoring legion of followers up-to-date about the follow-up movie he's always wanted to make. This is a remarkably satisfying conclusion to the series that answers the question every fan has had since the first season of the show: what happened to Arnold's parents?
Existing as both a (presumably) solo, eighty-minute reboot of the series as well as a much-needed piece of closure, the film works off of information given to us in the two-part Hey Arnold! season finale "The Journal." It's been a good eight or nine years since I watched that episode, but it centered around Arnold discovering the journal his parents kept while they were on an expedition in San Lorenzo, the fictional country. For the first time, the episode gave fans information about Arnold's parents and alluded to them being kidnapped and held hostage by pirates.
The episode concluded with Arnold finding a map of the region where his parents were lose, and since that moment, for fifteen years, fans have speculated as to what could happen and whether or not the much-rumored "Jungle Movie" would ever see the light of day. The financial failure of the first Hey Arnold! movie didn't inspire a lot of confidence, but nonetheless, Bartlett did his part as the master and creator behind the beloved programming in assuring fans that it would see the light of day in due time. The film, at long last, picks up on Arnold (now voiced by Mason Vale Cotton, who sounds a lot like the voices of Phillip Van Dyke and Spencer Klein, who came before him), who is still living with his grandparents (Dan Castellaneta and Tress MacNeille) in a boarding house surrounded by pets and eccentric tenants. Still curious about the fate of his parents, Arnold gets the opportunity of a lifetime as the school year draws close and a video project comes along that promises a trip to San Lorenzo as the top prize. Arnold's friends, including his right-hand-man Gerald (Benjamin Flores Jr.) and the anger-prone, lovesick Helga (Francesca Marie Smith), band together to create a project that sends his entire fifth grade class on a trip to the island. There they are under the guidance of Eduardo (Alfred Molina), a friend of Arnold's parents, who promises the "shortman" they'll make a committed effort to find his parents and offer him (and fans) closure they've sought for years.
Hey Arnold!: The Jungle Movie features distinctly different animation from both the original program and the theatrical film. It's brightly colored and great to look at, marrying a retrograde look with the eye-popping contrasts of the modern day. The voice-actors are unanimously solid, as well, all of them being up to the daunting task of trying to capture the same essence and vocal inflections of characters older than most of them. Flores Jr. is a tad off as Gerald and some other side-characters aren't pinpoint accurate, but the point is none of them distract as much as some of the later voices for Arthur Read on Arthur or Caillou's friends on his respective program.
It's also nice to see The Jungle Movie overcome one of the shortcomings of the original film, which I admit is still dearly nostalgic to myself. It suffered from a similar fate that burdened The Simpsons Movie and that is memorable or ordinarily impacting side-characters possessed relatively little or no screentime at all. That isn't the case here. Hey Arnold! was one of the shows that featured a myriad of characters and their own running gags, including, but not limited to: Eugene's propensity to get hurt all the time, Harold's appetite, Phoebe's braininess failing everyone at least one, Rhonda's self-absorption, which is now compounded by her having a smartphone. All are featured in the film to the point where some even bring repetition, yet after fifteen years passing us without a peep from these characters, it's nice to see they haven't changed a lick.
When it comes to reviving a long-dormant product, Nickelodeon has shown modest success. Its holiday-themed episode of Drake & Josh was a bust, as was its attempt to reinvigorate The Fairly Oddparents with questionable live-action specials years after the success of the cult-favorite Jimmy Timmy Power Hour trilogy. Hey Arnold!: The Jungle Movie is something of an outlier; it's a big win for a network that has fallen out of favor with the older audience it so effortlessly captivated. It shows a profound respect for fans, who at last not only get to see their television show fitfully concluded but with a lot of respect and integrity still firmly in place.
Voiced by: Mason Vale Cotton, Benjamin Flores Jr., Francesca Marie Smith, Dan Castellaneta, Tress MacNeille, and Alfred Molina. Directed by: Raymie Muzquiz.