Recess: All Growed Down

Like all famous Disney series, this is an all-new Playtime. Peering into your favorite characters' pasts, you'll follow the gang's memories when they first arrived at the Third Street school. They are invited by the teacher to spend a day taking care of the terrible Kindergarten. Little ones are impossible: they don't write, they don't play, they're stuck on the playground and they're totally undisciplined. The little ones revolt and, led by Chief Fedorento, "kidnap" TJ. The whole gang panics - TJ is missing. After much confusion, TJ and his friends realize that big boys and little kids can be good friends. After all, one day they were also from Kindergarten. Join in the joy and laughter of THE BEGINNING OF EVERYTHING. A sweet adventure full of important lessons about new friends, self-esteem and the exciting task of growing up.

I thought this one was even cuter than the first one, the mixture of high school children and kindergarten children, brought me nostalgia, a nostalgia for the time when I worked in a daycare center, something more realistic and cute impossible...

I love Recess, for me it is one of the last "good" Disney shows. And generally I liked All Growed Down, it is not as good as the show or School's Out but it is better and closer in spirit to the show than Taking the Fifth Grade. What was it that I didn't like very much? I personally do think that the film could have been 10 minutes longer, it all seemed too brief and short to me. I am also not a fan of TJ's voice, I can kind of forgive Taking the Fifth Grade because he was meant to be older(but only by a year) but not so much here. It lacks spunk and seems too adolescent for a 9-year old schoolboy. But my biggest problem was with Gus, his story is very inconsistent with what we know about him in the show and to me he seemed very out of character as well. However, the animation is bright and colourful, in keeping in style to the show's actually, and the music still manages to be catchy. The writing is smart and funny, not only that but also manages to be true in spirit too, while the story apart from the thing with Gus is cute and charming. All the characters are recognisable and on the most part consistent with the show, Gus in fact I think is the one exception. Apart from TJ, the voices are very good, Principal Prickley, Miss Finster and Spinelli are spot-on. All in all, I found All Growed Down good on the whole, though lacking those extra things to make it great. 7/10 Bethany Cox

It's like about 3/5 of this movie is compilation of the episodes from the series (lazily shown in flashbacks): "The Legend of Big Kid", "Wild Child", and "The Kindergarten Derby". Then comes the finale: the movie shows the whole Recess gang as kindergarteners, including, in "Wild Child", Gus Griswald. This retrons Gus' earlier introduction as a new student at school, by showing that when new kindergartener Gus wreaks havoc and causing the other Recess gang kindergarteners to rebel against Miss Finster and kindergartener Randall. Gus is later sent to another, out of sate school and soon forgets his Recess friends, and they in turn, forget Gus, viewing him as a new student when he appears in second episode: "The New Kid". This is some plot hole.

Okay, first thing to note going into this is that, well, don't expect the entire thing to be a completely new story. They actually take what I like to call the old Loony Tunes approach and create a story that's basically an excuse to showcase older episodes, though in this case, they all have a particular theme to them, specifically the kids building a friendship with the kindergartners. As such, we're treated to 3 classic episodes, but what makes this film worth it is the addition of a 4th new story, specifically back when Gus was in kindergarten. For the most part, it's fine. I can at least believe most of it, but there is one major plot hole that kind of removes whatever credibility the writers clearly wanted us to think it had. See, it's revealed that Gus actually had the same kindergarten class as the others, and while this is questionable at first, they not only address the obvious plot hole here but also come up with a generally good reason, that being that the others can only remember a fraction of their kindergarten years and thus it makes sense that they wouldn't remember all of this. However, it does not explain why, if Gus had a good enough memory to remember this, he genuinely had no idea who all five were when he first appeared in the series. I wouldn't mind this so much, except this show is actually pretty good when it comes to continuity. They have a nice concept here, with Gus actually being the one who helped all five of the others find their callings, and even the whole subplot with Mikey picking on the other kids was confusing at first but made sense when you found out why he did it. (It also ties into Randal once telling his father that Mikey used to be a schoolyard bully... that's actually kinda neat) Again, I do feel like that one small detail from the first episode kind of contradicts a lot of the forth story, but it's still fine and I like the setup enough that this is more of a nitpick. Again, maybe if the film had been all new material and the main story tying it all together wasn't so paper thin, I'd recommend this more, but if you're a die-hard Recess fan looking for a nostalgia trip, I'd say this is worth seeking out.

A tedious watch. Non-fans of the show won't like this.

'Recess: All Growed Down' is another compilation film, though at least this one has a firmer overall theme to it unlike 'Recess Christmas: Miracle On Third Street'. The story features the kindergarten kids, which is mildly interesting but it's dumbed-down a little - this feels aimed solely at children, way more than the preceding two productions anyway.

Andrew Lawrence's absence as T.J. is surprisingly noticeable, his replacement's voice probably adds to what I mentioned earlier in terms of sounding more kiddy. None of the rest of the cast are noteworthy.

Evidently people seem to like this film, fair enough I guess. It isn't one I enjoyed though.