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August and September are a wasteland when it comes to children's films, and October is a dumping ground for munchkin movies the studios don't want to see slaughtered against family-oriented Thanksgiving films. Last year, the benevolent studio gods gave us Digimon, and this year, they bestow Max Keeble's Big Move on delighted moviegoers across the country. Parents will be thrilled because they'll finally have something to drag little Austin and Kayla to see that doesn't smell nearly as much like ass as Digimon did.
Don't get me wrong - Keeble, which is actually only a "ment" away from being a fetish film, isn't that entertaining. In fact, you'd be better off waiting to blow your disposable income when the real kiddie pics (Monsters, Inc., Harry Potter) come out next month. But if Dubya Dubya III tells you to go out and spend money to stimulate the economy, then you'd better do it (because gassing up the minivan twice a week just isn't going to cut it).
We first see young Max Keeble (Alex D. Linz, Home Alone 3) as a pint-sized superhero, delivering newspapers with the pinpoint accuracy of a David Beckham cross, foiling the diabolical plans of the evil ice cream man (Jamie Kennedy, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back) and landing the neighborhood honey (Brooke Anne Smith), who, by the way, is the hottest chick in a Disney film since Emmanuelle Chriqui played Claire Boner in Snow Day.
The scenario is, of course, a dream. Max is really a doofus and he wakes up on his first day of junior high school with a pessimistic attitude, no luck with the ladies and only two friends, both of whom can kindly be described as social outcasts (and who were both in Snow Day) - the perpetually robed Robe (Josh Peck) and a clarinet-playing cutie named Megan (Summer Catch's Zena Grey), who harbors secret feelings for Max.
Things don't get any better for Max when he arrives at school. He has to contend with, among other things, a red-hot science teacher (Amber Valletta, Family Man), a pair of polar-opposite bullies (Noel Fisher and Orlando Brown), and an illiterate principal (Larry Miller, The Princess Diaries) who's secretly diverting the school's last dime into the football program.
When Max's father (grownup Nerd Robert Carradine) unexpectedly announces the family is moving to a new town at the end of the week, Max decides this is the perfect time to exact revenge on everyone who pisses him off. Whoa - don't worry, parents. He doesn't do it Klebold-Harris style. It's all pretty tame stuff, but Max ends up in hot water when Dad nixes the move, leaving his son dangling in the wind like so many tampon strings.
Director Tim Hill (Muppets From Space) adds a few nice touches, like Max's voiceover character introductions for the film's main characters and a flashback scene that's pretty funny, but there isn't too much else happening here stylewise...unless you count some farting, a little puking, and a couple of bizarre cameos from Tony Hawk and Lil' Romeo.
1:30 - PG for some bullying and crude humor
========== X-RAMR-ID: 29675 X-Language: en X-RT-ReviewID: 252509 X-RT-TitleID: 1110252 X-RT-SourceID: 595 X-RT-AuthorID: 1146 X-RT-RatingText: 4/10
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