The Lizzie McGuire Movie

Movie Title: The Lizzie McGuire Movie
Official Website (it might still work): The Lizzie McGuire Movie
Rating (out of 10): 3
Reviewed By: Michael Stevens
Buy the: Video/DVD \| Soundtrack
The Review:

Bored out of my freakn’ mind would be the best way to describe my feelings about this teenage girl targeted flick. So if you are a girl between say 10 and 16, you will probably like this movie, otherwise you will be banging your head against the seat in front of you screaming “why” at the top of your lungs.

The story picks up at little Lizzie Borden’s junior high graduation where Lizzie completely embarrasses herself. OK it’s not Lizzie Borden the ax murderer, it’s Lizzie McGuire (Hilary Duff, Agent Cody Banks) the perky but lacking self-confidence teenager who isn’t the most popular girl in school. Anyway, after the graduation Lizzie, her best friend Gordo (Adam Lamberg), and a bunch of other kids from her class head to Rome for two weeks of culture and history. Chaperoning the adventure is the mean Miss Ungermeyer (Alex Borstein, Showtime), who doesn’t want the kids to have too much fun (only learning). But Lizzie meets this cute Italian guy named Paolo (Yani Gellman, Jason X), who turns out to be a popular singer in a duet with a girl who looks just like Lizzie. So Lizzie is quite smitten and agrees to hang out and pretend to be Paolo’s singing partner Isabella in order to help cover for Isabella not being in town. Meanwhile she needs Gordo’s help to keep Miss Ungermeyer from interfering with her adventure of love, and eventually needs old friend turned enemy Kate’s (Ashlie Brillault) help as well. Gordo always helps, even though he truly loves Lizzie and wants her for himself, and Gordo’s roommate and skater boy Ethan (Clayton Snyder) tries to help in that department. While all this is going on in Italy, Lizzie’s little brother Matt (Jake Thomas, Artificial Intelligence) is trying to find ways to embarrass, blackmail, or sell damaging info about his sister to whoever will buy. And on top of all this, we have the trademark little cartoon always popping up to tell us what Lizzie is really thinking (much like John Cusack’s little asides in most of his films). So where is it all headed? Who cares, I didn’t, but I will say there is a bit of a surprise ending.

Ed Decter, Susan Estelle Jansen, and John J. Strauss wrote the film, while Jim Fall did the directing. Most of the cast comes from the TV show, and those not already mentioned above include Robert Carradine, Hallie Todd, Jody Racicot, Terra MacLeod, Carly Schroeder, and Brendan Kelly as the bodyguard Sergei.

Yes, I was very bored during this film and the humor only made me smile a couple of times (smiles only, no laughs). Most of the film was corny drivel that made me wish I could somehow sleep through it and absorb the movie through osmosis. But that didn’t happen, and there were not any hot and naked Italian women running around Rome in the background either. So, I was not entertained, but I do realize this film was not meant for me, so to be a little gentle I give the film three couches out of ten.