Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer

An overenthusiastic third-grader (Jordana Beatty) braces herself for a bummer summer with her parents and two best friends out of town, but things start to look up when her housesitting aunt (Heather Graham) turns out to share her sense of fun; maybe summer won’t be such a bummer after all. Director John Schultz and writers Kathy Waugh and Megan McDonald (adapting McDonald’s series of kid-lit books) might have put a little more planning into how to make their movie not a bummer for anyone over the age of 7. The movie has the manic, screeching energy of a Saturday-morning sugar-packed cereal commercial—but those are mercifully over in 15 or 30 seconds, while the movie hammers away at you for 91 endless minutes. (Thank God it’s not in 3-D.) Schultz whips his young star into an obnoxious frenzy.