Like its predecessors Doug's 1^st Movie and Recess: School's Out, Hey Arnold - The Movie brings nothing new with it from its television origins, retaining its muddied animation 'style', made all the more ugly on a large scale. And its trite, muddled attempts at a moral, that families come in all forms and sizes, was infinitely handled much more effectively by another recent animated film, one that I don't think I'll have to name.

In contrast, the message of The Powerpuff Girls Movie is quite clear: tiny, bug-eyed, color-coded supergirls rock.

For anyone not familiar with the pint-size leading ladies Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup (voiced by, respectively, Catherine Cavadini, Tara Charendoff and E.G. Daily), there is no need to fear, as their movie debut recounts their 'secret origins' as lab creations of the kindly Professor Utonium (Tom Kane), as well as that of their arch-nemesis, the evil, big-brained monkey Mojo Jojo (scene-stealing Roger L. Jackson).

Made up of sugar, spice and everything nice (plus a little Chemical X thrown in for the super-powered stuff), the precocious pixies try to fit into a normal life in the town of Townsville, but when a little game of schoolyard tag gets a little ... out of hand (resulting in mass destruction), the girls are ostracized by the townsfolk and become unknowing pawns in Mojo Jojo's schemes to take over the world. Needless to say, the Powerpuff Girls return to, as the tagline says, "save the world by bedtime".

With its zippy, hyper-kinetic animation style ('pseudo-anime'?) and the pulsing beat of James L. Venable's techno score, The Powerpuff Girls television series (created by Craig McCracken) is rich with snappy visual gags and witty, for-the-adults pop culture references, all-the-while respectfully tweaking the super hero mythos it simultaneously sends up and celebrates. All of the elements that make the series so entertainingly watchable and insanely popular are present in the movie, with a little moralization thrown in as well, a simple message of tolerance for those different then oneself ... yet another similarity with that other recent animated film.

An interesting dichotomy is present in The Powerpuff Girls Movie: at times the action scenes (which, it should be noted, may be too intense for younger viewers, netting the film a PG-rating) run on at an almost exhaustive length. On the other hand, the slower scenes tend to drag; the balance between the two is never quite achieved. And there is the usual 'waiting-for-the-super-hero-to-be-a-super-hero' problem inherent in all first films of this ilk, from Superman to Spider-Man. But all in all, these are minor quibbles as all the characters (yes, even Mojo Jojo) are so irresistible, and the laugh payoffs so rewarding, it's easy to overlook such shortcomings.

As a bonus, an animated short based on another Cartoon Network favorite, Dexter's Laboratory, is shown with The Powerpuff Girls Movie. Titled Chicken Scratch, the short finds the diminutive Dexter awakening to a nasty case of chicken pox. His ever-present foil Dee-Dee explains that if he keeps scratching the infectious bumps, he will eventually turn into a chicken himself. The rest of the short finds Dexter valiantly trying to resist the itch, to no avail. A mostly funny outing, ultimately hampered by an obvious resolution.

    Hey Arnold - The Movie: D

    The Powerpuff Girls Movie: B+