Hey Arnold! The Movie

The animated Nickelodeon TV series about the inner-city kid with the weird head hits the big screen with a thud, as Arnold leads a drive to prevent a big-time developer from demolishing his neighborhood to make way for a shopping mall. What works on TV in half-hour doses doesn’t necessarily translate to feature length, even with a modest running time of 74 minutes—the story has little wit and no surprises, and director Tuck Tucker’s limited animation provides no eye-candy to distract us from the shortcomings of Craig Bartlett and Steve Kiksten’s script. Besides, where do Paramount and Nickelodeon get off, preaching about the evils of giant corporations? The PG rating and some jokes (like a secret informer nicknamed “Deep Voice”) suggest that the film is aimed less at children than at childish adults.