A Fairly Odd Movie: Grow Up, Timmy Turner! (2011)

Thanks for the memories!

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

***RELUCTANT SPOILERS*** Just before the third "Jimmy-Timmy Power Hour" crossover TV-movie, Butch Hartman claimed he was running out of ideas for The Fairly Odd-Parents. Yet it seems that just when he thinks he can get out, either Nickelodeon keeps pulling him back in, or another idea for the cartoon that made him famous forms in his head. Either way, like a lot of other people, I expected this to be Nickelodeon's "Howard the Duck." Jennifer Stone already appeared in two bad remakes in disguise. We can only hope Daniella Monet doesn't start making the same mistakes.Timmy Turner is now 23 years old, and refuses to grow up and make a life for himself in order to keep his fairy godparents, Cosmo, Wanda, and Poof, all of which are in CGI, and voiced by the same cast who provided their voices since the days when it was a hand-drawn "Oh Yeah, Cartoons" segment. His parents are anxious for him to move out, and his teacher Denzel Crocker is still convinced that the reason he's still in elementary school is because of his fairy godparents. Chester and AJ often appear on the sidelines watching Timmy's antics, and bragging about the benefits of being more than just a legal adult. Vicky now runs a day care center and treats kids with the same lack of TLC she did when she was a teenager. Because Timmy never fell in love, except with the noticeably absent Trixie Tang, he has never been in danger of losing the two and later three who have been saving his butt from the misery of childhood and adolescence since he was ten years old. But suddenly while watching a ceremony for the groundbreaking of a combined hotel/oil well(yeah, that'd bring in customers), along comes this gorgeous brunette who strolls over and tries to stop Hugh J. Magnate(Steven Weber), the man who wants to build it. That brunette turns out to be none other than Tootie, the geeky sister of Vicky who had a mad crush on him when they were little kids. The ugly ducking evolving into a beautiful swan routine has been done to death, but Daniella is such a turn-on as grown up Tootie, you won't care. Besides that she wasn't even ugly playing as the Tootie of Timmy's memories.Needless to say, he makes wishes to help Tootie to stop them, and now his fairy godparents are scared because he's falling in love with her, and spend much of the movie trying to stop him. He knows this too, but he's not as concerned as they are, until they're about to kiss. Timmy's 23 and he's afraid to kiss this beauty? Hell, if I were 23, I'd not only kiss her, I'd wrap my arms around her, run my fingers through her hair, and do things to her that even Cartoon Network's Adult Swim time-slot wouldn't show! Meanwhile Mr. Crocker sets up a meeting with the tycoon who wanted to build that hotel, and reveals the existence of Timmy's Fairy Godparents. Anyone else would blow him off as the nut case he truly is and send him to the booby hatch, but the tycoon decides to team up with him to stop Timmy and Tootie. I'm going to say this, and I don't care if I get tons of hate mail in my IMDb box; David Lewis made an excellent Denzel Crocker. Daran Norris, who voiced both Cosmo and Timmy's dad was also an excellent choice to play as his dad in live-action.Despite the fact that it has a scene that puts Tootie in peril, it's not as Wagnerian as made-for-TV movie versions of FOP, most notably "Abra-Catastrophe" and "Channel Chasers." Whatever else you may say about it, you have to give them some credit for staying true to the spirit of the cartoon, right down to the prop department. Live-action Dimmsdale is as loaded with 1950's and 1960's era cars and trucks as the original cartoon was, although it would've been nice to see a live-action version of Mr. & Mrs. Turner's mid-1960's Ford Country Squire station wagon. There's also a scene where Chester and AJ are given some supposedly hot girlfriends(twins, in fact), and turn to the camera and ask if we're jealous. Not of you two. Of Timmy? Definitely!

The 10-year-old Timmy Turner that we all know and grew up with is now 23! And surprise, surprise, he still has Cosmo, Wanda (and surprisingly!) and Poof, by his side. Timmy is still in 5th grade and spends his free time making fun wishes for himself. Life couldn't be happier. But what happens when Timmy starts falling in love? Could that mean saying goodbye to his fairy godparents?I grew up watching "The Fairly Odd Parents" and I was fairly excited when I heard a movie was going to be released! However, I was disappointed. I should have expected it, though. When has a cartoon-made-live-action ever worked?This TV movie was a TV movie. The quality of the plot was very very subpar. Drake Bell was just average (or even below) as he played Timmy Turner. I was really saddened. I wish I could get my 57 minutes back. I also wish they made the movie animated.

This is a kids' movie, to say the least, but since I'm a kid at heart, I enjoyed every minute of it. I wonder what people expect from a cartoon-turned live-action movie anyway...well, judging from all the negative reviews, I'd say a lot. And might I also say: get a grip! It's a cartoon...turned into a live-action movie. It's supposed to be silly, goofy, and over-the-top. It's based on a car-toon. It's not rocket surgery.I have loved the Fairly Oddparents since they started coming on Nickelodeon many, many years ago. I like Drake Bell, and I love Daniella Monet...a lot. She's always been a really cute, pleasant actress to watch, and now that's she's an adult, she has turned into a stellar beauty with lots of acting potential. I even watch a guilty pleasure (Victorious) with her in it, and the entire cast of that show is just a fun bunch to watch.This movie has all the "classic" characters, with Vicky being the only exception that I didn't really care for. It's a tried-again standard plot of the cartoon series, so nothing new there, and the ending is a little forced and over-the-top (even for this movie), but I still watched the entire thing, beginning to end, never got bored, and even chuckled a few times. It was fun, and Mr Crocker actually stole the show. I was actually hoping he'd be the main bad guy, but nothing doing. I guess the writers/directors/producers didn't want to go that far down Timmy Turner Lane at this point in the series.Daniella Monet is an absolute beauty, and I hope she doesn't do anything silly like resorting to plastic surgery to fix her (a tad childish) cheeks. She'll grow out of them if she can just wait. And those boots she wore: red vinyl go-go boots, very reminiscent of the ones Mary Horowitz wears in the movie All About Steve. I wonder if maybe the wardrobe/costume designers were related somehow...Enjoy it for what it is: good, clean fun. If you liked the cartoon series, I don't see any reason why this won't entertain you as well for a little over an hour. It's a worthy addition to the franchise, I'm sad to see it go. I think everyone did a good job with it and look forward to watching it again in the near future.

As a longtime fan of The Fairly OddParents, I was excited to see the advertisements for this movie which would end the series (though there always seem to be ways around this).On the whole, the movie was a worthwhile finale and general tribute to the cartoon. I was entertained the whole way through. That being said, however, there were some very specific points that irked me. I have taken the liberty of arranging them into a top-five list for you.5) A point is made in this movie about Poof's first words. Yet this was (to my recollection) never a running gag in the series. A much more interesting idea would've been to finally reveal Mr. and Mrs. Turner's first names which had been a constant teasing gag for years in the cartoon. Additionally, when Poof does say his first words, he is speaking like a thirty-year-old thug. Does that not feel like a gag that would be more at home in a stupid 90's film?4) At one point, Cosmo and Wanda pose as normal human adults. However, they are portrayed by entirely different actors. While I am always entertained by Jason Alexander, these portrayals of the couple felt like pale imitations. Furthermore, this is nothing like an earlier time they had done this same thing. In that episode, they simply grew taller and their wands, wings, and floaty-crowny things disappeared.3) I bought all of the characters as either just the live-action version of their cartoon counterparts or the original character just 13 years later, except Vicky. Cartoon Vicky seemed to pulsate with pure, unadulterated evil. Live-action Vicky seemed more like a generally sweet girl going as the Wicked Witch of the West for Halloween. Additionally (and this is more of a nitpick) but did you ever notice that Vicky's breasts were unnaturally pointy in the cartoon? Well, those get carried over here. Why? None of the other ridiculous physical traits get transferred. Jorgen's chin isn't a foot long, Timmy doesn't have huge buck-teeth, and Crocker has only a slight hunch and his ears are on his head rather than his neck. Why should this of all things make it through?2) Mr. Crocker is, as always, a delight. However, he is almost entirely overshadowed by new villain Hugh J. Magnate, Jr., a corporate tycoon who wants to build a hotel/oil rig in Dimmsdale. In my opinion, this fails in several ways. For one, Magnate is a very stereotypical villain. Mind you, in watching a live-action cartoon, I'm not expecting The Godfather, but Fairly OddParents would at least have original characters who may or may not have had much depth. Plus, much like Poof talking, this is something that would be more at home in a stupid 90's film. Furthermore, Crocker was way too entertaining, memorable, and interesting character to get the shaft by a guy created for the movie. In fact, nothing in their scheme that Magnate did couldn't have been done by Crocker. Now it could be argued that we've already seen what Crocker does with magic (Jimmy-Timmy Power Hour 1, Abra-Catastrophe) so if he had been in on this by himself we'd just be retreading old territory. That's fair, which brings me to my next point: Crocker was never intended to be Timmy's archenemy; Vicky was. She was the reason he got fairy godparents, so it would've been some very nice irony if she was the one responsible for him losing them. Not to mention the fact that she is, in fact, Tootie's sister, which goes unmentioned.1) Timmy accepts responsibility, grows up, and gives up his fairy godparents. The series gets the resolution that we all knew was coming and Timmy goes through some very nice character development. All is right...until Jorgen shows up and declares that Timmy is now exempt from losing his fairy godparents. Bullcrap! While it is explained that this is in reward for all the times he saved Fairy World (which makes sense), this was never foreshadowed and Jorgen actually spent the entire movie up until that point trying to ensure that Timmy did grow up and lose Cosmo and Wanda. Plus, this creates some notable problems with the other time we'd seen Timmy's future: Channel Chasers. In the end of that movie, we see Timmy as a thirty-year-old man (a mere seven years after this), married, with two children, and having forgotten all about his fairy godparents (save for some residual memories) who are now assigned to his children. While not necessarily a contradiction, it certainly appears that whoever wrote this installment neglected to research established parts of the show's history. Finally, this raises significant problems for Timmy's development because it undercuts his accepting of the fact that he has to give them up. Mind you, he still does grow as a person, promising to only make unselfish wishes, falling in love, and being a responsible member of society, but this does make me question how much the writers actually cared about such things.