Review of Hey Arnold! The Movie (2002) by Criticnamedzack — 10 Apr 2016

From starting from to season 1 and ending up finding out the movie for this show is apart of season 5 (according to the Hey Arnold! wiki). I decided to watch this movie and despite seeing mixed to negative reviews. I went into this movie positive and hoping I would enjoy it as much as I enjoy the show. Well is it as good as the iconic Nicklodeon cartoon? Let's find out!

The film starts out with that the CEO, Mr. Scheck of a company called Future Tech Industries (FTI). Who plans to destroy Arnold's neighborhood and replace it with a massive shopping mall. It is up to Arnold, Gerald and Helga to stop Mr. Scheck from proceeding with his plan and the whole neighborhood puts their faiths in Arnold. However Arnold discovers Scheck's primary reason he's doing this is to get revenge to his family name who were royalist to the British empire during the American Revolution after colonists revolted and kicked them out of the neighborhood.

First of all, I think the plot of this film is a bad choice for Hey Arnold!. It's also very unoriginal, unexciting, predictable and not the plot I expected for Hey Arnold! The Movie. I mean they could of done something with the whole plot of Arnold's parents. It would of made a lot more sense then what we got. One thing I loved about the show is that it focuses a big portion of the shows time on character development or just even get a bit to say or do. In Hey Arnold! The Movie, the supporting characters don't get anything to do and just give up on their neighborhood and hope and wait that Arnold saves the day. We get a few new characters, like Mr Scheck (who kind of looks like The G-man from Half-Life) creepy city corner, and Bridget, a spy. Sadly they are not that interesting since they have little to no character development. We find out more about the bus driver of the show and his story with his ex-girlfriend. Unfortunately it's half-a**ed character development that's massively disappointing from the shows standards. Also another thing I didn't like about the movie is how unrealistic it is that everyone puts faith in Arnold... a 9 year old! I like the animation in Hey Arnold! but for a movie it seems quite lackluster for a 3 million dollar budget film. And what really puts the nail in the coffin for me is how poorly done the scene when Helga admits her true feelings to Arnold. When watching the show, Helga was the one character that kept me the most invested with this show. Her passion for Arnold, her insecurity and how she developed as a character instead of an one-dimensional bully. When she finally admits it, Arnold is confused and struggles to wrap his head around it, but then the movie focuses straight back to the plot and it was almost like that one scene many fans of the show were waiting for never happened!! And they don't even stick with it. Arnold and Helga mention it at the end of the movie and they say it was the "Heat of the moment" got to Helga and she thinks Arnold doesn't know that she loves him when he does and she's going to treat him the same as she always has... You played the card of Helga admitting her love, you might as well not have done it if you were going to try and reverse it.

I know I've being tearing this movie apart, but here's a few things a liked about it. I liked the cameos of The Incredible Hulk and Christopher Llyod voicing one of the characters who is a mad scientist. And I do like the message that sometimes it's better to keep things the old fashion way over modern things.

Verdict: I really wanted to like this movie, but sadly it's just terrible. Even looking up online this wasn't intended for the big screen and it should of stayed that way. All I can do now is finish up season 5 and forget that this movie ever happened...