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'The Lizzie McGuire Movie'

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Starring: Hilary Duff, Adam Lamberg
Director: Jim Fall
MPAA rating: PG for mild thematic elements
Running time: 90 minutes
Release date: May 2
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Photo Courtesy of Walt Disney Pictures

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By Chris Hewitt
St. Paul Pioneer Press

Posted: May 2, 2003

If you're one of the people who phoned last week to call me a perv for liking "The Real Cancun," you can take pleasure in the fact that it bombed. And that its exact opposite, "The Lizzie McGuire Movie," hits theaters today.

"Lizzie" is nice and bland (just to give you an idea how bland, somebody wears a pair of PG-rated leather jeans that fit like sweatpants, so all the danger and sexiness has been removed). Hilary Duff, who plays Lizzie, is also nice and bland, but in a good way.

She has a fresh, unspoiled quality rarely encountered in child stars, and it serves her well in "Lizzie," where she takes her TV character to the big screen and does the same thing TV's Amanda Bynes is doing in "What a Girl Wants": Klutzy/cute American is unleashed on European capital, experiences puppy love and learns the importance of family.

"Lizzie" is a better movie than "Girl" and not only because its gorgeous Rome locations (Lizzie is living la dolce vita on a school trip) are used more effectively than "Girl's" London backdrop. In addition, the script has fairly with-it humor ("That dude definitely spent too much time on his biceps and not on his abs. Totally old school," says a Lizzie pal) and injects personality into Lizzie's European flirtation with an earnest himbo, a John Mayer-like pop star who gives the movie a shot of romance and intrigue.

Director Jim Fall is smart enough to make sure none of the side trips in "Lizzie" takes the focus off the appealingly innocent Duff. Eventually, she'll get tired of having fans who are younger than her (Duff is 15). Eventually, she'll pull an Aguilera, bumping and grinding with sweaty hustlers in a Thai snake pit. But, for now, she knows what her young audience wants.

So does the movie, which finds its true calling as "The Hilary Duff Movie" at the climax, when it gives the actress an additional role to play and gives her fans a generous helping of double Duff.

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