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10.5.2001 00:05
Max Keeble is stuck in predictable silliness

But Alex D. Linz's spirited performance is a bright spot
BY NANCY CHURNIN
The Dallas Morning News

Boy has crush on a gorgeous, statuesque classmate, totally overlooking the sweet, pig-tailed one who has been his best friend. Boy has visions of being cool, but learns it's more important to be loyal. Boy must battle evil adults to become a hero. Boy must help his father succeed in his career.

Yes, Disney's Max Keeble's Big Move retreads similar themes. It's formulaic, long and more than a bit silly. But that's not to say the kids won't like it.

The spirited and appealing Alex D. Linz is Max -- and he's the best thing about the film. His best friends are the clarinet-playing Megan (Zena Grey) and Robe (Josh Peck), who wears a bathrobe to school every day. Why Robe does this or why the school tolerates this is never explained.

Max wants to reinvent himself by becoming popular. His quirky friends pose a problem. So do two school bullies -- three-piece suit-dressing Orlando Brown as Dobbs, who calls his victims "investors," and Noel Fisher as Troy McGinty, who writes his victim's names on his T-shirt.

The plot turns when Max's parents (Robert Carradine and Nora Dunn in dull turns as a mousy advertising exec and compulsively redecorating housewife) tell him he's moving. He sees that as an opportunity to take revenge on the bullies and the principal and the evil ice cream man without consequences.

The screenplay is so predictable you can hear the gears clicking over the crunch of the popcorn. The villains are excessive, and Max is an unbelievably brilliant strategist.

But in an increasingly dangerous world, do kids really need a movie that tells them they can't trust the adults who are supposed to take care of them? Do they really want to hear that it's up to them to prod their weak-willed dads to stand up to cruel bosses? Should it be their job to stop a Snidely Whiplash of a principal (Larry Miller), who despises kids and plots to close a pet shelter to make way for a football stadium?

And do we really want them to look anxiously at the ice cream man (Jamie Kennedy), who gets a kick out of hurting kids here, just as the Snowplowman does in Snow Day?

Even in Disney's Recess, which amped up the silly factor, the kids only think they are facing the bad guys alone. In the end, the teachers and the principal join in to help.

Here's hoping for a return to family films more along the lines of My Dog Skip or To Kill A Mockingbird, where kids learn that despite the undeniable presence of evil in our world, most adults are more complicated -- and caring -- than they seem. That would be a movie worth watching.

**

Max Keeble's Big Move

Starring : Alex D. Linz, Larry Miller, Jamie Kennedy, Zena Grey, Josh Peck, Nora Dunn, Robert Carradine.

Producers: A Walt Disney picture written by Jonathan Bernstein, Mark Blackwell and James Greer, directed by Tim Hill.

Playing : Apple Valley, Entertainment Swansea, Harbour Mall, Holiday, Narragansett, North Dartmouth Mall, Providence Place, Showcase North Attleboro, Showcase Seekonk Route 6, Showcase Warwick Mall, Stonington, Tri-Boro cinemas.

Rated : PG, contains crude humor.

Running time: 1 hour, 41 minutes.