La Cour de récré: Vive les vacances!

Recess the TV show is about kids having fun, and teachers being teachers (good and bad). There's good character development and personality variation on the small screen and it carries well to the big screen.

The movie puts the kids in the role of spies who need to break INTO school to save their lifestyle. Along the way, there are great 60's flashback scenes and songs, lots of funny spy movie cliches including the mob-scene climax.

The characters are caricatures but it IS a cartoon after all. There's good voice casting (including James Wood, Melissa Joan Hart and a great sounding Robert Goulet). The plot is complicated (and just a little goofy), but my 8 and 10 year old had no trouble following the action.

There are good messages about friendship, respect, integrity, duty, but these aren't done in a preachy way.

The animation quality is variable. There are some great 3d zoom-sweeps, but for part of the movie the characters look like they've been singed. However, the few animation flaws are only an issue for nitpickers (like me).

See it with someone who knows that characters and likes them. It'll be a good rental or a nice afternoon in the theater.