The creation of one Craig McCracken (also partly responsible for DEXTER'S LAB, another terrific Cartoon Network show that gets a short feature before this movie), the Powerpuff Girls movie is the origin story of Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup, three super-powered little girls created by the kindly Professor Utonium. In his attempt to make the three perfect little Girls, the Prof accidentally mixes sugar, spice and everything nice with the unstable Chemical X, making history, and a cool cartoon, in the process.

Everything I just wrote is pretty much covered in the opening credits to each episode of the cartoon, but here we get to see just how these unique little girls make the leap from oddball kindergarteners to full-fledged kiddie superheroes, and it's not an easy transition.

First, the movie addresses the fact that these ARE just little girls, only about a day or two old, and not really aware that their powers are potentially VERY destructive. Some viewers and parents might be surprised to see just how much damage the girls accidentally wreak on the hapless city of Townsville when they discover the giddy joy of a superhuman game of tag. The Mayor and his citizenry are NOT impressed.

Heroes are only as good as their enemies, naturally, and the girls have a great one in the form of the Professor's lab monkey Jojo, also transformed in the Chemical X incident into a superintelligent, and super-evil monkey of menace redubbed Mojo Jojo. Through his manipulations, Townsville is put into grave peril, Professor Utonium is endangered, and the girls are put to the test quite early in their young careers. Will they overcome?

The answer's obvious, but watching the story unfold is still great fun. This movie is, for my money, everything you want in a great superhero movie. Engaging and sympathetic heroes, ethical crises, action galore, lessons to be learned and terrible foes to be defeated. There's also a lot of funny bits, one standout being Buttercup's repeated attempts to save the same dog, over and over. There are also several moments of genuine heartwrenching drama, which is a credit to the filmmakers, who know the difference between characters you can laugh WITH, and ones you can laugh AT. Blossom and company, for all their cartoonish eccentricities and roundheaded, club-fingered simplicity, are always portrayed as real characters with real lives and troubles. It's an essential element to the tale, without which this movie would have fallen flat on it's face.

I've heard some point out that this movie is actually less 'hip' than most episodes of the series itself, and that may in fact be so. But hip isn't what they're trying for here, although it has it in spades anyways. Like this summer's SPIDER-MAN, this story is all about showing you our heroine's hearts, and just what it is that drives them to do the right thing, even when it's not the easiest thing. It's about that corniest of ideas, what makes a hero a hero. And that is always a story worth telling, especially if it's told as well as it is here.

Besides, if you don't think a warring army of superintelligent monkey crime-bosses isn't hip, then my friend, you just need to get yerself a clue.

Copyright 2002, The Visitor

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