“Ron, grapple me.”

It’s taken me too long to get this written. At first, I wanted to only compare it to the show, then I wanted to just write down my thoughts as I watched the movie, but neither came to fruition as I watched it. So, is this a review? Not really. Is this a rant? Not really.

But, I made it my mission to watch the movie, so a post is going to come out of it.

I want to compare, but I want to talk about the movie itself without the baggage of the show’s expectations. Is it a good movie on its own? Did it establish a world and characters that make sense?

I grew up with Kim Possible, have seen all the episodes, and still, watch it today. Although I wasn’t obsessed like my sister, it still holds a spot on the top shows I watched growing up with its main female lead, the themes, and jokes just to name a few reasons. Jokes that I still laugh at.

With that being said, it’s hard not to compare, but I’ll do my best.

Also, spoilers, so if you want to watch the movie, stop here.

The Story Itself

Kim Possible saves the world by night and goes to school by day. She and her best friend Ron are starting their high school careers and Kim wants everything to go perfectly, even mapping out the routes to her classes, but as soon as she walks in, nothing goes by plan. She’s late, doesn’t make the soccer team, but befriends a girl who happens to be obsessed with her and Ron.

After this, the girl Athena becomes the new Kim Possible, doing well in missions, and gaining popularity as Kim fades into the background.

I tried to go in with an open mind, despite all the scenes and videos released beforehand. I hoped something good would come out of it, even if was just Easter eggs of the show.

And I could rip into the casting choices, the acting, the CGI, which is what people would expect, but there were other parts of the movie that I wanted to bring some light to.

By the way, I do plan on comparing them later, so just bear with me for now.

Don’t Be Jealous, Kim

This bothered me. Kim’s new friend Athena magically becomes good at everything she does just from a hair cut, and Kim is cast aside. Athena’s defeating her villains, somehow capturing everyone’s attention, and Kim is undoubtedly jealous.

One thing my mom pointed out is that Kim is best friends with herself. Athena is literally Kim. Here comes a spoiler: Athena is a robot designed by Drakken to break Kim and her “spark” that he likes to mention a lot. Athena is good at a lot of things, fighting, soccer, popularity, she was literally designed to be that way and Kim calls her, her best friend. There’s nothing else to Athena because SHE IS Kim. There’s nothing that distinguishes her from Kim, aside from being very annoying.

The Comparisons

Okay, I held this off to just get those points out of the way. From the advertisements, it seems that the movie wanted to do the show justice, making sure they get the characters right, therefore, it is fine for me to compare.

I’m just making a list because it’ll be easier.

• Like I said, Kim doesn’t have that sass. She doesn’t bicker with Ron, which made their relationship more realistic. Their chemistry was lack-luster.
• Ron is clumsy and quotes himself from the show, like saying, “Never be normal.” It was like a younger version of Ron Stoppable without any likability.
• Kim is a bit too obsessed with school. I don’t remember her being that much of a perfectionist like mapping out her classes.
• You know that clip everyone bashed where Kim is running to the bus? It was just as stupid the second time around.
• No communicator and Kim talked to Wade via necklace that projected him. Wade literally spied on Kim during conversations. I also felt cartoon Wade would’ve been suspicious of Athena for being so perfect. This one just loves her.
• Drakken and Shego…Drakken isn’t blue, but he has some blue veins.
• Okay, Drakken wasn’t that bad. He might’ve been the closest to the cartoon, at least in my opinion. Aside from Rufus. Sometimes he’d say something and I’d be like, “Okay, that was very Drakken.” But they messed up one thing…
• DRAKKEN CREATED A SUCCESSFUL, HUMAN-LIKE ROBOT. I literally watched the Bebe episode after the movie, and they literally said Drakken cannot make a robot. I wish Athena messed up, maybe her programming was off, just to give some kind of indication she wasn’t human because nothing was wrong with her.
• Drakken and the other villains have Instagrams and follow each other…think about that. Duff Killigan literally posted a picture of his new fortress. Like. What.
• Shego’s “doesn’t care” attitude felt forced. I just couldn’t catch onto her being Shego. That and they didn’t do her fight scenes justice. Shego is an aggressive, good fighter and I felt she either didn’t do anything impressive or got her butt kicked a lot.

• Mr. Barkin…wasn’t intimidating and had a weird obsession with his cat. Was that in the show? I remember him collecting some plush animal, but not that. And all he did was yell at Kim for being late.
• Bonnie was meh.
• Kim tried out for soccer, not cheerleading, for some reason. Why did they even change that?
• Christy Carlson Romano has a cameo as a singer, like to remind us we should be watching the cartoon. I was expecting to see Will Friedle. Hoping more than expecting.
• Once Athena got into her groove, I couldn’t stand her.
• Also, the reveal of her being on Drakken’s side wasn’t that big. My dad and I called it early on.
• Kim’s family is introduced, but they didn’t do anything. Her mom is Willow from Buffy, so she had more scenes, but her dad, Jim, and Tim literally showed up on screen just to say, “Hey, we’re here!” And that was it.
• Also, her mom and grandma went with Kim to the final fight to help and they did NOTHING. Literally, they got captured twice. They tried to fight Drakken (because Drakken needs to fight) and that was it.
• Also, why would they go? I remember her Nana being a martial artist, but I don’t remember her mom. Correct me if I’m wrong. I think she went on a mission with her mom once, but it wasn’t a thing.
• Drakken wanted to just take Kim down…while downloading Athena’s spark that Kim has so he can be better than Kim. What…why isn’t he just taking over the world? And he was creeping on Kim through security cameras in the school. Like that wasn’t weird, even for Drakken.

• Drakken never turns fully blue. He has a reaction to his failed download and he turns into a kid. And then he infiltrates Kim’s school…which reminded me of a Sitch in Time, which I kind of wish the movie was based on but I’ll get into that later.
• Kim used her grappling hook for everything. I guess it’s her go-to gadget and I swear she was always asking Ron for it. I guess he’s like her caddy.

• Rufus actually looked decent. He wasn’t in it very much, Ron literally stole him out of a lab.
• When Athena was revealed to be a robot, it reminded me of So the Drama, when Drakken made a robot for Kim to date, but in that movie, when it was revealed, Kim was pissed at him. In here, Kim did everything she could to save Athena. She still believed this girl was her friend. You could say, “Maybe a part of Athena liked Kim all along,” but it wasn’t until Kim saved her ass that she cared about saving Kim and it was just a debt to be paid.
• The lab explodes, which is a Drakken thing, and Athena gets torn apart, but they find all her pieces, even her talking head, and put her back together so she can fight crime with Ron and Kim…
• No Monique.

Bonus: My Biggest Pet Peeve

Unnecessary flips! Backflips, cartwheels, spins, WHY? Kim literally did cartwheels to pick up pieces of paper! When she did that…I lost it. I didn’t know if I could move on.

When I watched the cartoon afterward, I wondered why Kim didn’t do ten backflips to get down the school hallway.

Overall

I think there could’ve been more potential if they stuck to Kim and Ron. No Athena, or maybe Athena was there to tear them apart. It would be like a Sitch in Time, where they split them up. This is where kid-Drakken comes in. It reminded me of him, Monkey Fist, and Duff going back in time to stop her from becoming Kim Possible.

It reminded me of a better Kim Possible movie.

They could’ve spent more time with Kim and Ron and established their friendship more. Yes, they support each other and work together, but I just missed what made their relationship likable in the first place. How many people shipped them? I couldn’t even imagine these two eventually being romantically together.

What are my final thoughts? Watch the cartoon. In there Kim and Ron’s friendship is easy to root for, whether you ship them romantically or not. In there, Kim’s family has a presence in her life. In there, Athena doesn’t exist. In there, Drakken is blue.

Seriously, why wasn’t Drakken blue?

Why didn’t they just give him blue skin as the reaction to the machine? Then they’d only have to paint him for like, a few seconds. Why turn him into a kid, who also doesn’t have blue skin?

This is how the post ends, with me bitching about Drakken’s skin color.

If you read through that, thank you for your time. I don’t know why it took me so long to get it down and I’m still not sure if it’s everything I wanted to say. I was honestly trying to remember everything, but I think I blacked out for some scenes.

Now for a real question, which is worse: this or The Last Airbender?

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