Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer

A young Aussie actress who seems as all-American as a Magic 8 ball, successfully walks the tightrope from precocious to exuberant, never once falling into obnoxiousness. That could describe this crackerjack of a kids' movie as well.

Mosteller might be the movie's real discovery. He twists his lisp and slurry speech around the dialogue in a way that exudes far less attitude than the kids.

A mild-mannered kids' comedy that makes for a pleasant-enough time killer.

The books' ingenious wunderkind is MIA here, replaced instead by a generic eye-rolling, motormouthed preteen bopping around rote set pieces.

With summer comes theaters filled with superheroes, sequels and forgettable family fare. In the last category, we find Judy Moody.

The incessant tumult drowns out any real message for the kids - or pleasure for their parents. It's a film so obnoxiously frantic that its most restrained element is a banjo-strumming elementary school teacher played by none other than '90s tween-mugging icon Jaleel "Urkel" White.

The mystery is why the filmmakers thought third-graders or anyone else would be willing to pay for this master class in tedium.

I get confused by critics and their reviews of kids movies these days. I'm not a huge fan of them myself. So I stay away from discussing them in terms of rating other than good or bad. But with such overwhelming negative reviews I thought I would jump in. It's good. It's fun. It's completely unbelievable. But what I can tell you is that my 8 year old really smiled through it watching a character she read about come to life. Judy can be annoying as any kid can from time to time But I loved the idea of a list of Bummer Summer Killers. And my daughter made one for herself on her own after seeing it. She chose challenging, exciting stuff to try for her first time. And I'm proud of her for it. And this movie got her to try it. So by all accounts it's a done it's job. It's made a kid smile, a parent not angry and it's challenged my daughter. I know it's not talking cars, dancing penguins or cowboy lizards.

Cute kids' comedy plays like a more girl-centric version of Diary Of A Wimpy Kid, as plucky young Judy Moody (Jordana Beatty) sees her big plans for summer break go down the drain when her two best friends wind up going out of town for the summer. Things look up when, inspired and aided by her free-spirited Aunt Opal (Heather Graham), Judy comes up with a wacky list of dares and adventures to be undertaken by both her and her faraway friends. Nothing hugely original here, but Beatty (an Australian actress doing a flawless American accent) is appealing, Graham is tremendously sexy and loveable, and in one of the more surprising bits of casting this summer, Jaleel White - yes, I'm talking iconic TV nerd Steve Urkel - is genuinely charming as Judy's teacher. I know the reviews are crummy and the Megacritic scores reflect that, but I'd take this over Mr. Popper's Penguins or (God help me) Transformers: Dark Of The Moon any day.

this movie wasn´t pretty good at all! i give this movie a 2/10! what a big terrible movie!

one of the most worst adaptations of a beloved children's series ever do not watch it as you will regret it if you like the books stick to the books just dont watch this movie

I took my neice to see this, it was the worst movie i have ever seen in a long time. Why are the vast majority of films that are being released nowadays **** so bad? It was horrendous. Even my 8 year old neice hatted it.