Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius
Genre: Sci-Fi/Adventure
Director: Pete Docter
Writer: Jacob Jones
Based on the 2002 animated film and the TV series
Cast: Julian Hilliard, Edward Norton (VOICE), Ravi Cabot-Conyers, Jeremy Maguire, Violet McGraw, Jaidyn Triplett, Mark DeCarlo, Megan Mullally, Jahzir Bruno, Andrea Martin, Steve Blum
Plot: At a tracking station somewhere in the heart of Colorado, a general takes a look at someone’s computer, the man controlling it is shocked to find what looks like another spaceship, only to learn that it’s moving too fast. Sensing the situation, the general declares that they’ve got themselves a bogey.
A team of fighter jets take off in the sky in search of the mysterious aircraft, one person managing to get close enough. He is immediately shocked to find three kids and a robotic looking dog in it. These three kids are Sheen (Ravi Cabot-Conyers), Carl (Jeremy Maguire) and the creator of this makeshift rocket Jimmy Neutron (Julian Hilliard). Jimmy briefly takes a look at the planes and blasts off, leaving the others in the dust and wondering what they just saw.
As Jimmy checks all the coordinates, Carl looks down to find the planes trying to catch up, suggesting that they pull over. Jimmy says that there’s no time for that and tells Sheen to stand by with the satellite. Sheen excitedly rambles about how this is just like the time Ultra-Lord discovered a new planet. Before he goes on for long, Jimmy tells Sheen to deploy the satellite as the rocket leaves the atmosphere.
Unfortunately before Sheen can do so, the rocket begins to run out of gas. Sheen tries to throw it up, but it hits Jimmy in the head. With time short, Jimmy tries to think about what to do next, being hit with a brain blast. He takes the toaster, borrows Carl’s drink from lunch, some tape provided by Goddard, and some string from his socks and puts them together. He catapults the makeshift satellite into the sky. Jimmy smirks, the experiment a success. “Some things you just can’t try at home.”
With that, the spacecraft runs out of fuel and begins to fall from the sky. Jimmy manages to turn on the stabilizers and floats the rocket to his house, all while ejecting Sheen and Carl off to school. During this, they bump into a church bell, a laundry clothesline and a billboard advertising the new amusement park, Retroland before finally landing on top of the roof of his house, much to the ire of Jimmy’s mother Judy (Megan Mullally) and amusement of his father Hugh (Mark DeCarlo). Jimmy’s explanation is that he’s trying to contact an alien-life form, but Judy doesn’t consider it an excuse when it’s happened nine times. Goddard carries Jimmy off the roof and onto the ground, forcing him to start a new day.
Jimmy heads into his room, the multiple robots he’s built across the house helping him change into a new shirt, brush his teeth, do his hair and tie his shoes (although the shoe bot mistakenly ties both shoes into one big knot). Jimmy races down the stairs and out to catch the bus. Having just missed it, Jimmy uses the opportunity to try his newest invention, the super bubblegum mobile.
As Jimmy manages to catch up to the bus, Libby (Jaidyn Triplett) catches a glimpse of the mobile and alerts her best friend Cindy (Violet McGraw) on it, Cindy teases Jimmy (or as she calls him “Nerd-tron”), but he's convinced that it’s the way of the future, only for the bubble to pop on a tree. Everyone laughs at that as Jimmy lands inside a trash can, a gooey, sticky mess.
In Ms. Fowl’s (Andrea Martin) class, Cindy finishes a report on dinosaurs before Jimmy goes next. While sure, dinosaurs are intriguing, they’re nowhere near as exciting as his latest invention, the shrink-ray. Cindy smirks smugly, asking if it’ll shrink his brain. Speaking almost as if he was expecting that response, Jimmy attempts to demonstrate by shrinking Cindy, only for the shrink ray to malfunction and hit Ms. Fowl.
After school lets out, Cindy teases Jimmy for his “excellent showcase of failure”. As Jimmy leaves, Libby asks if maybe Cindy is being too hard on Jimmy. Cindy scoffs, saying that he’s in way over his head, never seeing the clouds above the trees. Libby thinks for a moment before telling Cindy that she was once that same person. Unwilling to face this harsh truth, Cindy storms off.
On the way home, Jimmy, Sheen and Carl spot a billboard for Retroland, the new amusement park in Retroville. A large area filled with rides that are ‘out of this world’, there are multiple events that will happen in the grand opening, including a meet and greet with Ultra-Lord, a llama petting zoo and the opening of the world’s first brain museum. Unfortunately for Jimmy, he can’t go as tonight is a school night.
Jimmy attempts to change Judy's mind by using some hand-crafted pearls complete with a rare diamond to persuade her only for things to go wrong when he hears his rocket crash on the roof, this time being controlled by Goddard and carrying a panicked Hugh. That is enough to ground Jimmy for the week.
While Jimmy sulks over his plight, out in the deepest parts of outer space, his makeshift satellite lands on an unusual-looking planet. An alien picks it up, curious about its contents before running off to a spaceship. The alien requests to see the king, claiming to have received a message from the ‘kid with the big head’. Their leader King Goobot V (voiced by Edward Norton) hovers over and the group watch the message, noticing a picture of Jimmy’s parents as they do. King Goobot nods, claiming to have completed his search.
That evening, Jimmy confides in Goddard on how best to handle the situation when he hears a knock on his window. Confused, Jimmy looks out and finds Nick Dean (Jahzir Bruno), the coolest kid in school. He asks Jimmy if he’s gonna come check out Retroland. Jimmy says he can’t, his parents grounded him. Nick suggests sneaking out, but Jimmy is reluctant. It’s there Nick gives him some advice. “When are you gonna stop worrying about what others are gonna say, and focus on living while you’re still young?”
As Nick skates off, Jimmy thinks about what Nick said and hatches a plan, quietly teleporting himself to his laboratory and creating a clone of himself. Upon sneaking the clone in his bed, Jimmy heads off to Retroland, immediately becoming enamored by the spectacle of it all. He soon finds Carl, Sheen and Nick and the four proceed to have the time of their lives, all getting to do the things they want to do.
Back in the Neutron household, Judy is having trouble falling asleep. She asks Hugh if she’s been too hard on their son, Jimmy. Hugh suggests that it’s possible they’re sheltering him too much. He is eleven, after all. This is the time when he should be exploring the world. The two agree to check on Jimmy and try to be more open.
Out in the center of Retroland, Jimmy, Carl and Sheen lay on the ground, watching the stars twinkle when a shooting star streaks by. Jimmy asks his friends if they could make one wish, what would that be. Sheen wishes to be a famous comedian, Carl wants to own a llama emporium. As for Jimmy? Right now, he’d prefer to live in a world with no parents. Sheen and Carl agree. As the three head for home, they are blissfully unaware of a spacecraft landing in Retroville as one by one, alien life forms abduct horrified parents, silencing them by suffocating them with a slimy green toxin before putting a device on their heads.
The next morning, Jimmy wakes up and heads to the kitchen, only to find that his parents are missing. On the kitchen table, he finds a note and reads it. It says “Gone shopping, be back soon. Love, your parents”. Confused, Jimmy wakes Goddard up and asks if he can scan the neighborhood. Goddard does so and upon the scan’s conclusion, Goddard finds that all the adults in Retroville are gone. The initial confusion from Jimmy and the other kids turns into sheer exuberance as Nick hosts a 24-hour party among the streets. All throughout the day, the kids eat sugary sweets, party on top of houses, engage in dangerous stunts, and run amok as mass anarchy rules the streets.
The one person who isn't thrilled about this is Cindy who asks if they even know why their parents are gone. Sheen tells her to settle down and party, but that gets Cindy more riled up, asking multiple questions regarding the whereabouts of their parents and if they should be suspicious. Nick steps in, asking Sheen if Cindy’s giving her any trouble. On command, Nick and a couple of the other kids pick Cindy up and throw her towards a nearby trash can.
Seeing this, Jimmy suggests that maybe this was a step too far. Nick shrugs, mentioning what he said earlier. Nick leads the group of kids to Retroland, while Jimmy stays behind. He walks up to Cindy, her eyes welling up with tears as she wallows in the filth. The moment she sees Jimmy, she flies into a rage, claiming that it’s all his fault she’s in this place and that none of this wouldn’t have happened if his stupid head hadn’t moved to this town.
Cindy tries to get out of the trash can by herself and succeeds only by tipping it over and hopping out. She storms off, wiping away the stray tears as a conflicted Jimmy watches on. Before Jimmy can say anything, Carl tells him that they’re all gonna ride the Cosmic Vomit roller coaster at Retroland. Despite his reluctance, Jimmy ultimately joins them.
The next day, Jimmy wakes up with a serious stomach ache. He looks around Retroland, stunned at the sea of bodies scattered everywhere, mainly kids suffering from similar stomach aches, but also kids with broken bones and potential concussions. Wherever they go, the kids say the same thing. They miss their parents. Hurt and depressed, Jimmy heads home, seeing that his parents still haven’t returned.
Jimmy sits on his bed, asking Goddard why everyone’s parents left without saying goodbye. Goddard shows Jimmy a hologram of what happened before his parents got kidnapped, leaving him suspicious. He goes to the kitchen, picking up the note his parents left him and enters his lab to compare it with the notes left by the Yolkians. To his shock, the messages are fake. Not only that, he is able to find evidence of aliens on his computer.
Jimmy runs off to show the whereabouts of their parents to the others when he passes by Cindy's house. He pauses for a moment before dashing off. Inside Cindy's room, she lies on her bed in a miserable state. She sits up, looking at her numerous trophies and sighs.
Through flashbacks, it's revealed that Cindy was once the smartest kid in Retro City and a respected genius in her own right. When Jimmy first moved to Retro City, Cindy was cordial towards him, only for Jimmy to be unimpressed by what he considered her 'boring' stature. Still, there was a relative peace between the two until the science fair. Cindy had put together a solid experiment on the water cycle, only for Jimmy to not only copy that experiment, but do it bigger, more interactive and better.
Unsurprisingly, Jimmy would take first prize and with that, those she once considered friends left her behind. This would lead to her resenting Jimmy, as he had stolen her title and her life. The flashback ends with Cindy lightly touching a spelling-bee trophy and staring into its reflection.
All of a sudden, Cindy's phone rings. She picks it up and hears Libby rambling about how Cindy has got to see this, calling it the craziest thing she's ever seen. Cindy rushes to Retroland where she sees Jimmy giving a speech explaining what happened to everyone's parents. The kids listen on, skeptical at first, only to be horrified when Goddard shows them the evidence.
Jimmy relays a plan he came up with. The kids will travel to Yokus in order to find their parents. The kids seem excited at first, only for Cindy's voice to ring out, asking how it would work. Jimmy cooly thanks Cindy for joining them before explaining that they'll turn the rides in Retroland into rocket ships using all the tools they can find. Jimmy asks the others if they're in, and they are. Jimmy turns to Cindy who hesitantly agrees, but if they blow up, whatever is left of her is kicking his butt.
Upon finishing their work, each kid gets on a specific ride and prepares for liftoff. Upon putting 25 cents in, all the rides take off and get into formation, though Carl takes a bit longer given his butterfly cart is low. The group blast off into outer space, Goddard providing everyone with astronaut suits. Once in space, they brave a meteor shower, each ship taking some form of damage before finding a nice asteroid to take shelter for the night.
During the evening, Nick and Libby team up to tell the kids a spooky story. As everyone is resting, Jimmy starts to reflect on the future with Carl when a shooting star passes by them. It's there everyone begins to lament on how their parents used to tuck them in before they were abducted. Jimmy remains hopeful that they'll soon be found.
The next day, the kids continue their search for the planet of the Yolkians when Goddard sniffs something. He barks and sticks his nose out, revealing the mysterious planet Yokus. Upon landing, Jimmy and Cindy from two different groups. Jimmy, Libby and Carl will go find their parents while Cindy, Nick and Sheen will stay on as backup.
Jimmy, Libby and Carl explore Yokus, the futuristic planet complete with spaceships, unique towers and green blob like aliens all about. As Jimmy looks on in awe, Goddard points toward the egg-shaped castle where King Goobot V lives.
Inside the castle, Goobot examines his new subjects as they stand in a frozen line and nods, noting that they'll make for a fine cultural delicacy. Cindy, Nick and Sheen sneak from behind, Cindy finding Jimmy's dad Hugh wearing a mysterious device on his head. All Hugh can do is cluck like a chicken. Cindy steps back, not wanting to cause Jimmy's plan to backfire only for Sheen to grow too curious and pull on a part of Hugh's device, causing him to call them intruders.
Before Cindy can get on Sheen's case, the group of parents surround the three kids. With nothing to lose, Cindy proceeds to karate kick Hugh in the face. Nick and Sheen also try to back Cindy up, but the numbers are too great and they are soon taken by guards.
As this is happening, Jimmy, Libby and Carl are also trying to sneak in the castle, only for loud alarms to blare all throughout the castle. Jimmy and his group try to flee, only for their escapes to be barricaded by guards. Not long after, they are taken to King Goobot's throne where the king expresses twisted delight in meeting the 'rescue crew'. Jimmy tries to warn them that the army he brought in will destroy his planet unless they're released only for Cindy, Nick and Sheen to be thrown in.
Libby asks King Goobot what he wants with their parents. In truth, it's not what he wants, it's what Poultra wants. Poultra, told as a bedtime story, is the god of Yolkus and the god of wrath and suffering. She takes things that people despise and devours them whole. The story ends with King Goobot revealing Jimmy's messages, the coordinates that gave the Yolkians the ability to abduct their parents. Realizing what he's done, Jimmy lowers his head in defeat as King Goobot arranges for all the kids to be locked in a dungeon until adulthood.
Inside the dungeon, Sheen tries to explain what Ultra-Lord would do in this situation, but it's clear the other kids have given up. Cindy stands far away from the others and begins practicing her tai-chi when she hears crying noises. She looks to her left and finds Jimmy sitting in a secluded area in the dungeon. Cindy realizes for a moment that this is her to reclaim her spot, only to take pity on him.
Cindy walks up to Jimmy, asking if he's alright. All Jimmy can mumble is that it's his fault. Cindy tells Jimmy not to be so hard on himself. So he made a mistake, we all do. She used to be the smartest kid in school until Jimmy came along, but she knows one thing Jimmy doesn't. It's that they need him if they're gonna get out of here. Jimmy looks at Cindy, asking why she's being nice to him. Cindy pauses, looking at the defeated kids before saying that they need him.
Jimmy pauses, glancing at the kids before garnering a brain blast. He asks for Libby’s phone and calls on Goddard. Goddard rushes into the scene, being given the plan of faking a self-destruction sequence to King Goobert V. This has the unintended effect of freeing the kids when a glitch unintentionally causes an explosion large enough to blow down the doors.
The kids soon escape the dungeon and travel to a large arena where a ceremony is finishing up. The parents are all in two straight lines performing the chicken dance to a crowd of Yolkians. Once finished, Poultra hatches from her egg, the horrifying chicken reptilian eyeing her meal with a twisted grin. Jimmy lays out the plan, Sheen will head to the field to obtain a transport, Jimmy will enter the mind control tower while the rest of the kids fend off the alien guards.
Sheen attempts to portray himself as a last-minute sacrifice. While doing so, the rest of the kids gear up for their final battle against the aliens. King Goobot V sees them and commands the army to deal with them at once. This time, however, led by Jimmy and Cindy, the kids are ready as they surprise the alien fleet with their child-like tendencies.
Upon fending off the army, Sheen arrives with the spaceship and the kids hop on. Poultra chases after them, King Goobot following suit with his ship. The two fly off into outer space, the chase landing them both perilously close to the sun. With Jimmy and the kids cornered, King Goobot tells Jimmy to let the others go, it’s only him he wants. Jimmy refuses, stating they’ll burn if he does. He lets Cindy control the ship soon after, turning it around so King Goobot’s ship is closer to the sun.
King Goobot laughs with glee, claiming that Jimmy can’t win. No matter what he does at this point, he’s going to lose something. Be it his friends, his parents or his dog. And what can Jimmy do, he’s just a small kid. Having had more than his share, Jimmy unveils his final weapon, his size ray. With it, he says:
“I may be small, but I’ve got a big brain!
Upon pressing a button, Jimmy, Goddard and the ship become planet sized, making King Goobot tiny in comparison. With one push, King Goobot and his spaceship are sent hurtling towards the sun, drowning in its rays. In one last desperate cry, King Goobot V screeches that they haven’t seen the last of him before melting away.
The kids celebrate their victory before returning to Yokus and reuniting with their parents. Jimmy comes up to Hugh and Judy, admitting they were right. He shouldn’t have talked to those strangers. He may be smart, but he’s still a kid and he loves his parents. They love him too, even if they don’t always understand him. Judy tells Jimmy that they’re proud of him and they share an embrace.
The next day, everyone is finally home in Retroville, Carl, Sheen and Jimmy all enjoying breakfast together when the doorbell rings. Jimmy gets it and finds Cindy. Despite the awkwardness surrounding them, Jimmy lets Cindy in and the two sit by the kitchen table. Jimmy asks if Cindy meant all the things she said in the dungeon. Cindy admits that she did. As much as she wanted to cling onto her grudge, saving their parents was more important.
Cindy then admits that maybe Jimmy isn’t so bad after all. It was just hard not being the best after so all. Jimmy smiles, saying that Cindy isn’t so bad herself. He extends her hand, asking if they can bury the hatchet. Cindy grins, shaking his hand. Upon watching this, Sheen and Carl lightly tease them about being in love. Hugh and Judy watch the four enjoying themselves, thinking this is the start of something new when Judy spots the Jimmy clone from earlier. All Judy can do is laugh.
“That’s our genius.”
Post-Credits Scene: A limo rolls into town, carrying a well-educated man. He listens to the radio announcer talk about the heroic exploits of Jimmy Neutron and thinks to himself. This kid seems like a smart cookie. Perhaps he’ll have to answer to someone. That someone? Professor Finbarr Calamitous (Steve Blum).
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