SPOILERS AHEAD, MATEYS~!
Well, I've seen the movie a total of six times. DVR is an amazing thing. Of course, so is the movie.
Now, I can't believe I'm about to go right back into this forum with what I imagine will either be a full-blown review, or some sloppily-written piece of crap I'm too tired to polish. Still, I've had a review festering in my head while I've been at work lately, so there's no reason why I shouldn't type one out.
So, lately I've been thinking to myself that PaF hasn't been as adventurous as it used to be. With the plot shifting more towards Candace than the extraordinary things Phineas and Ferb do every day, it's hard to fit an adventure into every episode. It seems like although Phineas and Ferb still is a great show, it's lacking the excitement in season 3 that it contained in seasons 1 and 2. It seems like lately, Phineas and Ferb have just been staying in their backyard, making something, and then Doof's invention wipes it away (or it wipes itself away). I figured, Phineas and Ferb needs another big adventure that reminds me of why I started watching in the first place.
And then I watched the movie.
At the opening, there it was. It started out right in the middle of the entire movie. Phineas and Ferb, shackled up and about to be frigging eaten by a Goozim. And then it shifts back to them waking up to the groovy melody of Everything's Better with Perry. This sudden shift in tone told me that something serious was about to happen, and that this movie was going to be worth the watch...well, that's good to know, considering the fact that I pissed off a couple of my friends by telling them I'd be staying home that night to watch Phineas and Ferb.
Anyways, it started out just like a typical PaF episode. Of course, though, because it's the movie, they had to soup up Perry's entire plot into something extremely serious. I don't see why they did that, though; it's usually pretty clear that Perry doesn't have much difficulty in thwarting Doof's -inator of the day. Yeah, some things were actually necessary, and it was used for foreshadowing and all that jazz, but did we really need it? Well, maybe. I don't write the show. I guess I just prefer Perry's usual "no big deal" thwartings of Doof, just because it's clear that this should be the case when Doof literally expects to be thwarted every day.
So, Phineas and Ferb build their invention for the day (and we get a pretty interesting backstory on Barthol--sorry, Perry). It crash lands into Doof's building, and they meet up with him. Then, they help him out. Perry shows up, and of course, pulls off one of the greatest "oh shit" faces I've seen in a cartoon in a long time. That's probably my favorite thing about this movie: Perry's facial expressions tell an entire story and convey so many things. He doesn't need to use words for you to feel such intense emotion for his inner conflict.
Now, here's something that kind of irked me at this point in the movie: The pacing of the early events of this movie is tremendously fast. One minute, Perry's pissing on Doof's couch, and two minutes later, Doof's already singing a duet with his alternate self. Again, time constraints and such, but it just went so ridiculously fast that I felt like certain scenes were over before I could take them in.
Although everyone says they don't like how angry Phineas got in the movie, I'm going to have to disagree. Both in SBTY and this movie, the best part was watching the sheer conflict take its toll on the characters. Phineas was collapsing under this absurd revelation, and he didn't know how to deal with it. So, he just broke down completely and turned angry with a strong tinge of disbelief. Yeah, it may have been overly drastic with him abandoning his pet in another freaking dimension, but just the sheer development of Phineas's character in this movie is proof of how amazing the movie actually is.
Phineas and Ferb then go on to meet their 2nd dimension selves. It's a sad story, with them completely having their entire beings sucked out of them and all. Summer was my favorite song from the movie, even though it made me feel like absolute crap every time I was doing something remotely uninteresting or not worth my time. Well, that's growing up for you. But yeah, seeing Phineas explain summer so simply...it's kind of nice. Well, except for the fact that I'd much rather be building an amazing summer project than riding a bike. However, that's another story.
Now, here's where Candace's story goes into full swing. Jeremy's going to college soon, and Candace wants to grow up. She then goes off on a tangent and starts talking about how there is some mysterious force screwing her over every single day (well, yeah, it's called the show's formula and writers). Then, as she gets sucked into a portal into the 2nd dimension, Stacy just completely adopts this force as a deity. Seriously, this was a pretty hilarious subplot, just because of the fact that this is one gigantic religious joke. And I find those hilarious.
Now, we go forth to Perry's (and everyone else's) capture. I found Alternate Doof's lines to be funny (by the way, nice tease there with the whole "How old do you think we are?" thing), while Phineas coming around to accepting the existence of Agent P is extremely heartwarming. Meanwhile, the adventure is clearly seen as everyone works together to resist the robots and work their way up to Alternate Doof's headquarters. It had everything I wanted and more.
Now, everything goes to hell as the big climax approaches. It's pretty much Robot Armageddon in Danville. With hard-rock musical accompaniment. Seeing Perry's specially-made backups of Phineas and Ferb's inventions was definitely a high point in the movie, just because it shows how much Perry trusted his owners to handle such an apocalyptic situation so flawlessly. Then, everyone just goes into full-out battle mode. Phineas and Perry share a hug and high-five (and I must say, that high-five is probably the most emotion-carrying high-five I've ever seen) and kick tons of robot chassis.
And once again, the day is saved! Thanks to...a toy train? Look, I saw this coming from the second it was mentioned, but still. It just seems a bit too silly for me. Still, I guess it's just that kind of whimsical, spontaneous nature that makes Heinz Doofenshmirtz...well, Heinz Doofenshmirtz. And then, of course, he just makes everything poof away (and then gets hilariously arrested).
However, immediately after this amazing climax of character-developing goodness, we had to reach the inevitable retcon scene. We all knew from finding out the movie's synopsis that there'd be a huge retcon at the end. Even though it's weak writing and it's a massive shame to put all of this development to waste, it was one-hundred percent necessary for the survival of the show. So, although we will always remember this amazing adventure, our heroes will n--Oh, okay then, random Phinbella kiss snuck in...really no point in that other than pure shipper-feeding, but I guess that's fine (although I find the angle that Phineas needs to be at to even be in a kissable position to be hilarious)...anyways, no one's gonna remember anything. Sad, but necessary.
But wait, there's more! Perry remembers the entire thing and saved photos of the entire event. And me? Well, if it wasn't for the fact that I'm never really accustomed to crying, I might have shed a tear. It was simply beautiful. Fuzzy heart-feelings around for everyone! Yeah, it definitely ended on a touching note, and that's exactly how it should be. Amazing writing, PaF staff. Amazing writing.
However, as with anything you can get too picky about, there will always be numerous amounts of plotholes and uncomfortabilities.
First of all: Yeah, Ferb did pretty much nothing for most of the movie. Sucks that the man of action really didn't get much action, even during the extremely action-y climax.
Second of all: You know how this entire thing appeared on the news when Phineas and Ferb got home? Don't you think it's hard to believe that they'd just stop covering it after the day it happened? I mean, Robot Armageddon is a pretty hard thing to ignore. This'd easily show up on the news shortly after the retconning.
Third of all: There were several characters involved in the climax (and those that even sat/stood right next to OWCA agents!) that didn't get their memories wiped. Unless there was a huge tri-state area retconning after the one in the room, it seems unlikely that Irving, Albert, Love Handel, and most of the rest of Danville would just never speak of it again.
Fourth of all: Now that Doofenshmirtz gave the toy train to his alternate self and doesn't even remember that he did it, wouldn't that count as him losing it? Sure, the argument could be given that he doesn't value it as absurdly much anymore, but this could also lead him into becoming his alternate self all over again...Makes you think, doesn't it?
But, yeah. Overall, this movie was simply amazing, and I walked away from it being fully satisfied. It was the adventure I was hoping for, with a plethora of emotion to boot. I plan on watching it many more times again, and I'll say that I hope there's more adventure along these lines coming up soon in the world of Phineas and Ferb! Great job, Dan and Swampy, on keeping me interested since 2008. You and the rest of the PaF writing staff are simply amazing.
Since there are some weird plotholes in the movie, I'm forced to give it around a 9 or 9.5 out of 10. Still, this was most definitely the greatest thing I've watched in ages. If you haven't watched it yet...just go freaking watch it. Well, sure, I just spoiled everything to you, but it's your fault for reading my entire review when I told you there'd be spoilers...Still, just freaking watch it even if you've seen it eleventy gazillion times already, because that's still not enough.
Sat Apr 21, 2012 11:49 pm by eeemeee
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Thu Oct 13, 2011 8:01 am by Roy42
» Phineas and Ferb: Across the 2nd Dimension
Fri Aug 19, 2011 10:15 pm by CoffeeFlavord
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Wed Apr 13, 2011 3:59 am by Roy42