Judy Moody and the NOT Bummer Summer
“Judy Moody and the NOT Bummer Summer” has one of the catchiest movie titles of the summer. Unfortunately, a title can’t carry a movie and a few funny moments can’t make it entertaining. Based on the popular book series by Megan McDonald, Judy Moody (played by Jordana Beatty) is without a doubt a lovable character. She is spunky, adventurous, imaginative and silly. You want to love her, but after a while, you wish she would just roll with the punches on her quest for fun.
Her dream plan of having the most awesome summer ever (complete with earned “thrill points”) is indeed fantastic, but falls through when she finds out that one of her friends is headed to Circus Camp and the other is headed to Borneo. Learning how to saw someone in half at Circus Camp and searching out lost tribes in Borneo? What can top that? Even her parents are taking a trip to California without her. Luckily for her (and the audience), an extended visit from her world-traveling, free-spirited Aunt Opal (played by Heather Graham as one of the movie’s saving graces) keeps hopes up for a summer of fun.
In her many attempts to out-fun everyone, Judy tries walking across a tightrope only to fall in the river and attempts to ride a roller coaster only to end up getting barfed on. In the meantime, she gets upstaged by her little brother, Stink (cutie Paris Mosteller), who’s seeking out Bigfoot for his own summer adventure. His “less talk, more action” mentality is definitely more successful when thrill-seeking fun is the goal.
The movie is colorful and has enough silly jokes to make the kids giggle, but it doesn’t keep from them from squirming in their seats from restlessness and perhaps a bit of boredom. The target audience age range won’t recognize Judy’s teacher, Mr. Todd (Jaleel White). But adults will chuckle when they realize Mr. Todd is Urkel from the 90’s sitcom, “Family Matters”. His impromptu class sing-a-long and summer challenge to the kids keep another storyline alive, but his appearances on- screen are short-lived which could have served as yet another route that Judy could have followed to un-bummer her summer.
Kids are out of school and will flock to this movie because the animated crowd-pleasers and other family-friendly flicks seem to be few and far between. However, after the ninety-one minutes that the film runs, kids and adults alike will immediately forget about Judy Moody and be ready to enjoy their own summers of fun.