Phineas and Ferb the Movie: Across the 2nd Dimension

I loved this movie. I am a huge fan of the TV show and this movie takes everything that the show does well and runs with it. Phineas, Ferb, Candice, and all the rest are wonderfully characterized. The musical numbers are fun and there are just the right number of them.

I liked the story as well and I thought it made good material for a movie-length episode.

I highly recommend this one.

At age 50, and too cheap for cable, I have almost no knowledge of today's animated kids' shows. It wasn't all that long ago, though, that I was still watching cartoons on network TV on Saturday morning (of course, I watch cartoons on Sunday evenings on Fox, but that's a totally different matter since those should not be seen by children). Still, I had never seen "Phineas and Ferb" before this movie and knew next to nothing about them.

Still, this movie has enough intelligent writing to make it tolerable for adults, enjoyable characters, and a fun plot involving an alternate dimension. The main villain is enough of a bumbling idiot to be appealing, though his alternate-universe counterpart was plenty scary.

The music was certainly not my taste for the most part, but I don't think it was supposed to be. Actually, like many of the cartoons of my childhood, this movie's music doesn't seem particularly contemporary (Slash was popular 20 years ago, for example), but it's plenty loud.

The kids from our universe are geniuses, and we can be sure that no matter how bad things get, they'll figure out a solution. This sis good for kids to see because maybe it will make them want to study.

I do question the TV-G rating, given the amount of violence. ABC has a tendency to put a TV-PG on squeaky-clean content, so it's nice that they're recognizing this is a clean movie. But this movie has only the cartoon kind of violence, though, and most of it is against robots, and not really enough to justify a TV-PG rating when TV-PG can be given to content that is much worse.

I especially liked the nonsensical but humorous lines given to one of the robots. I don't recall him being given a name, but Irving's voice was Jack McBrayer of "30 Rock", so that was probably him.

It's certainly worth seeing if you're a kid.

Albeit not being a real fan of the TV-Show, I must admit that I watch it (like many other adults, I presume) occasionally for the sole reason of Heinz Doofenshmirtz, who is targeted to older audiences and always manages to get a chuckle out of me.

Keeping in mind, that it is the film-feature based on a kids TV-show (with your mandatory song per episode), I was pleasantly surprised by this movie. The animation is slightly above that of the show, it is cleverly written and the tone more 'serious' than that of the show itself. Because of that it is enjoyable for children as well as their parents.

I can recommend this movie for all fans of the show and assure any parent, that it is a much better rental/buy than many Direct-To-DVD Disney movies.

Addendum: Watching the show prior to the movie is not required, but being familiar with some of the shows themes, might improve your experience of the movie. Due to the nature of the show it is not necessary to watch more than one or two episodes, since the plot is always roughly the same.

I absolutely love this movie. Phineas and Ferb always reminded me of the Saturday morning cartoons of childhood past. The regular episodes are somewhat silly and hilarious, but this movie is a true summer blockbuster. It's full of well-done action sequences mixed with doses of good humor. The songs are great, ranging from hard rock to disco, compared to some of the ones in regular episodes, which seem forced at times. Plus, the plot isn't too complicated but not your average children's made-for-TV movie plot line. The pacing is a bit fast though, and comedic timing is lost through hurried lines and lack of pauses. The animation, although much better than normal TV episodes, is a bit sloppy at times, is at times sloppy. If you're a long-time or even a short-time fan of this series, the movie will make you laugh at references to previous episodes. In short, I absolutely love this movie. If it was released in theaters, with crisper animation and better comedic timing, it might be one of the best things Disney has released this decade.

Step-brothers Phineas and Ferb have had a lot of great adventures over the course of their summer (ex. Traveling through time (twice) Building a Roller Coaster and going around the world in a single day) but this one seems to take the cake. There's a good helping of action, and enough jokes to keep viewers young and old laughing. I was very impressed by this Disney Channel production, because, not only was it so much better than any of the other original movies but it was even better than a lot of the actual episodes of it's own TV series. Which is saying a lot because the TV series is groundbreaking entertainment with phenomenal writing and animation. I never thought I'd say this but: Bravo Disney Channel!