Dexter's Laboratory: Ego Trip

My young son is a big fan of the TV show and I usually get a chuckle out of the goofy family Dexter is forced to deal with, so we grabbed this from the rental shelf to check it out.

The movie is all about Dexter (present and future) and his nemesis, Mandark. There is little of sister DeeDee, and no sign of glove-wearing mom or good old dad. Dexter travels forward in time, then forward still further, then back a little between the first two jumps (I think) in order to meet his future self who he believes "saved the future". He meets and joins up with future versions of himself who are all quite different from present Dexter.

This normally brightly colored cartoon was fairly monochrome in this long feature, and the time jumping was hard to follow a viewer of any age. It lacked the usual characters and laughs of a short episode, but it wasn't meant to be Shrek or anything... (5/10)

BTW - the only part to make me and my son laugh out loud was at the very end when all the Dexter's were saying their farewells... Goodbye Billy! Some more flat out humor and less misery would have been nice.

Dexters Ego Trip is a good animation story about a boy, which is travelling through time to stop the Mandark to "take the world". The battles is very realistic, but I didnt find any satiric elements, which is naturally showed in the series(except one in the end), but i like the story, when dexter meets the dexter in the future, which is different, its kind of funny:) The animation is brought from the series. If you like the series, you got to watch this.

Awww. I love those girlies. The girlies who gave Mandark a bath, Sarah (the blonde) and Rita (the brunette), while Mandark was yelling at that teenage Dexter and exposing his ass to the whole wide world (AKA the Viewers). Ohhhh, I love those sweeties. I love those girlies. But wait! that scene is highly erotic in my lifetime, and should have got Genndy Tartakovsky and his Hanna Barbara and Cartoon Network animators condemned by some, if not, many parents, for animating such an erotic moment for TV. But, I love those girlies who Mandark a bath, one blonde haired, the other, black haired. I love those beautiful and pretty sweeties. Kootchy, Kootchy, Kootchy, Kootchy, Kootchy...xxxxxxxxxxxxx (kisses)

This TV movie has stylish animation, and there was clearly ambition here, but the result is an awkwardly-paced, surprisingly dull film.

The plot is simple: Boy genius Dexter travels through time, teams up with 3 of his future selves (young adult Dexter, middle-aged Dexter, and elderly Dexter), and then they stop his rival Mandark from taking over the world.

As an adventure, it's very disappointing. The interesting parts are all told in flashback, so most of the movie is Dexter passively wandering from one setting to the next, just looking at the situation and hearing some horribly tedious explanation about it. They took "time traveling boy genius on a quest to save the world" and made him the most boring character they possibly could.

Mandark is the only other real character in the movie, and he's in "completely generic villain" mode with nothing remotely interesting about him.

The movie basically has 2 notes: occasional action scenes, and lots of long scenes where characters talk and talk and TALK and TALK. This could be OK if the dialogue was funny, but most of it just repeats points that we could already see onscreen, like the writers thought it was a radio play. It's also a problem that a TON of dialogue goes to "young adult Dexter," whose voice is like nails on a chalkboard. I found myself skipping through scenes where the characters droned on and on and on, just wishing that they'd actually do something fun or interesting with the time travel gimmick. The tedious, talky writing was a gigantic misstep that bogs down the entire movie.

The creators put more effort into the action scenes, but even these are dull and forgettable... Dexter runs away from generic baddies, he fights the pretty wimpy Mandark at the end, and he smashes some robots who stand there waiting to be beaten. Action isn't fun when you're defeating such lame bad guys.

For me, the biggest letdown was that Dee Dee is barely in the movie. The original series worked entirely because Dexter and Dee Dee were a great double act who played off each other so well. There's so much you could do with Dee Dee getting involved in a time-traveling adventure! And a stoic character like Dexter *needs* a fun foil, especially in a 50-minute runtime. But since Dee Dee has only one line in the whole film, and it sounds like a recycled sound clip from the show, I'm guessing that her voice actress couldn't take part. It's a real shame.

The creators clearly got the VAs for Dexter's parents to do a couple lines, but they chose not to use those fun characters either. If the series was like a tasty stew of varied flavors, this movie is like a bowl of plain oatmeal.

I honestly wouldn't recommend this movie to fans of the show. Almost everything that made the show fun and great is gone, and the only reason to see this is the animation style. (And honestly, the style peaks in the opening seconds, with a very cool and classy black-and-white sequence of Mandark in silhouette. Nothing else in the movie looks as good as that first part.)

There just isn't much entertainment value here. Only bother watching it if you're really curious, or if you're studying the creators' overall work.

"Spoiler free review"

I think all the fans and I should know that this was intended to be the very last of the series as of what Genndy Tartakovsky wanted. I loved Dexter's Laboratory when I was young even though I always got mad at DeeDee whenever she destroyed something for Dexter, but luckily we don't get to see her much in the whole movie.

But the first time I saw this movie when I was 7 I think, I thought the movie was too awesome and wanted to see it again and again. Watching it again I could still feel the awesomeness but at the same time I could see clearly how the movie got some flaws. The flaws isn't exactly annoying or horrible to watch, but because of it's time limit it will likely not explain everything.

The animation itself is as the series very good and concentrated. Genndy and the crew did a very good job to make sure the movie still had the same feeling as the series. The story itself is quite different but a good story boarding to tell how the young Dexter decides to see the one who saved the future which of course he believe he did it. But suddenly comes across with the other Dexter's of himself in the future. The adult or wimpy Dexter, the old Dexter and of course the Action Dexter (Suddenly Dexter became rugged as his favorite TV-hero Action Hank). They were all different except still having their genius intelligence. The music is more epic and loyal to Dexter on his personal mission.

As what I said about the flaws, the problem of the story might be of it's time limit. If only the movie were longer I think it would make the movie more interesting and deeper to the time traveling and the older Dexter's life. It also lacked some characters but I guess that Genndy were mostly concentrating on the Dexter and Mandark rivalry. Concentrating on the older Dexter's they might give you a different feeling to them like they are the supporting characters instead of they are the original Dexter. Some people were criticizing about the lack of humor, in my opinion I found the humor to be enough to entertain myself with the way Dexter's Lab is. The old Dexter was the funniest character in the whole movie.

So all in all this less than 50 minutes movie was still entertaining and is definitely a more loyal and good ending to one of Cartoon Network's masterpieces. Despite it's flaws I still think the movie is worth watching how many times you want, but you definitely need to be a Dexter's Lab fan and you must have some philosophical interests especially when it comes to time traveling. Not perfect but a perfect ending and premise to the series.

"A little comment to CommonSenseMedia"

(The movie itself is not sexist at all and just because of it's beginning it doesn't make the whole movie sexist and inappropriate to children. It's not trippy either. I think that you should not worry so much about what the movie gives. This movie is at least not to bad to show the children. And maybe the movie indeed is aimed for young boys but there are girls that can as well enjoy it too.)