Sunday, December 03, 2017

In 'Hey Arnold!: The Jungle Movie', Arnold's Surname Is Finally Revealed While Helga Gets to Shine the Most

More than 13 years after it aired its last episode, Hey Arnold! has recently made its return to the small screen via a TV movie – Hey Arnold!: The Jungle Movie.  It serves as a closing chapter to the original five-season series, though it could also work as a prologue to a new season, if Nickelodeon ever decides to do so.  On top of this, Arnold’s surname is finally revealed in this movie, which is – wait for it – Shortman!  After the mystery of Arnold’s surname served as a running gag in the show, the reveal that “Shortman”, which we assumed is his grandpa’s nickname for him, has been his surname all along is hilariously brilliant.

Anyway, in it, Arnold’s friends – at the prompting of Helga, after realizing how much Arnold would love to find his parents who had gone missing in San Lorenzo (a fictional Central American country) – proceed to make a humanitarian video and join a contest, the prize of which is a summer school trip to San Lorenzo.  Their video win, and the entire class travel to San Lorenzo, with their teacher Mr. Simmons and Helga’s older sister, Olga, as chaperons.  However, the school trip quickly turns into a deadly jungle adventure, as the pirate La Sombra targets Arnold, believing he’s the key for him to get to the treasure of the hidden “Green-Eyed People.”  Meanwhile, the Green-Eyed People may actually hold the answer to the whereabouts of Arnold’s parents.
Hey Arnold! – with its set of eccentric, interesting characters; quirky, heartwarming episodic stories; and catchy, jazzy music – was one of my favorite cartoons as a kid.  And nostalgia for it makes the first twenty minutes of this movie highly entertaining and feel-good.  That span perfectly captures the mood and style of the show, and its peak is the video tribute that Arnold’s friends prepared for him, which also rightfully serves as a tribute to the show itself – what it had been about and why it was beloved.  Everyone who grew up with Hey Arnold! will find that moment very touching.

Unfortunately, those first twenty minutes are already the best part of the movie.  Not only does the jungle adventure narrative that comes afterwards don’t quite fit with what Hey Arnold! is supposed to be, it’s also extremely dumb and littered with plot holes.  Sure, the original series was definitely full of silliness and over-the-top scenarios as well, but it also felt thoughtful in its writing that its stories always add up in the end.  On the other hand, lot of things don’t make sense with The Jungle Movie’s plot, especially everything relating to the Green-Eyed People.
If this had been another kind of movie, I would have given up on it.  But it’s kept afloat by the Hey Arnold! characters, who I really adore.  When given moments to shine, they really shine – their different personalities, talents, and oddities at full delightful display.  In fact, during the jungle adventure storyline, Arnold is kind of unremarkable.  It is his friends who are more compelling.  Especially Helga.  Helga has the best arc in this movie.

Helga Pataki is a tough, scathing, tomboyish girl who often bullies and mocks Arnold.  However, she is secretly in love with him, to a degree that can be considered as obsessive already (heck, she even maintains a shrine for him!).  Whenever she thinks she’s alone (but most of the time, she’s caught by Brainy), she shows a sensitive, poetic side and rants of her feelings for Arnold.  In the outside, she ridicules Arnold’s ventures.  But she often supports him and helps him as much as she could behind the scenes.  This is one of the series’ funniest bits, and the movie finally delivers a culmination to this storyline – with Helga stealing the show in the process.    At several points in The Jungle Movie, the day is saved because of Helga’s deep loyalty to Arnold.  In addition, an important subplot of the movie is that Arnold is finally made aware of Helga’s true feelings for him, and he makes his response in the end, after seeing who Helga is in the inside.
In the end, Hey Arnold!: The Jungle Movie is just fine.  Its flaws are so apparent that they prevent long-time fans and new audiences alike from really loving it.  Still, once the final scene closes, it leaves a satisfying feeling.

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