THE LIZZIE McGUIRE MOVIE

Lizzie, TV’s all-American teen icon, finds romance, Italian style, on a Roman holiday.

CAST: Hilary Duff, Yani Gellman, Adam Lamberg, Clayton Snyder, Ashlie Brillault, Jake Thomas, Brenda Kelly, Carly Schroeder

DIRECTOR: Jim Fall

"… an extension of the Disney Channel TV series that plays like a feature-length shampoo commercial -- benign, aspirational and sudsy…See Lizzie's eyes grow wide at the bursts of fireworks over the Eternal City. Watch Lizzie flip her hair coquettishly while dining at an outdoor café. See her giggle and blush prettily as she tosses a coin in the Trevi Fountain, or whizzes through the cobblestone streets on a Vespa… Lizzie McGuire's ‘Movie’ doesn't try to be anything more than a superficial escapist fantasy for fans of the show." --Megan Lehmann, The New York Post

"Watching Hilary Duff pretend that she's a gawky, marginalized middle school loser/ misfit in ‘The Lizzie McGuire Movie,’ one is drawn toward two unavoidable conclusions. First, that no misfit in the whole history of middle schools ever glowed in the dark as she does. And second, paraphrasing something Chris Rock once said in an altogether different context, if she's a loser, then you wonder who's winning….Duff's baby-bombshell exuberance is the only reason you keep watching ‘The Lizzie McGuire Movie’ through its juiced-up, synthesized din…The movie, with all its brashness and crassness, can still claim noble motives in encouraging insecure young people in the audience to seek the pop diva buried deep within." --Gene Seymour, Newsday

"The creation of TV writer-producer Terri Minsky, ‘Lizzie McGuire'’ has a down-to-earth sweetness that can be immensely appealing, and its view of middle school as seen from the middle social rungs is one that can hit empathetically home…Curiously, ‘The Lizzie McGuire Movie’ goes against the grain of the TV show by turning the likably average Lizzie into the toast of Europe…The climax plays like Britney lite, and wide-eyed Duff puts it over in a way that makes every girl in the audience feel like she's the star. So who am I to carp that the film trades in the amiable realism of the show for just another watered-down pop star fantasy?" --Ty Burr, The Boston Globe

"‘The Lizzie McGuire Movie’ is an entertaining and effective expansion of the television series to roughly the dimensions of a feature film…the picture unfolds as a light romantic comedy that adults will probably find familiar but tolerable, while their age-appropriate offspring will be transported to new heights of cinematic enchantment." --Dave Kehr, The New York Times

"Not a single moment of creativity or intrigue is to be found in the big-screen debut of the Disney Channel's most popular sitcom character. But it's got plenty of Lizzie, and, as any 12-year-old girl will tell you, that's all you need to have a good time…As embodied by Hilary Duff, 15-year-old Lizzie has become a phenomenon in the last two years, probably because she's awkward enough to relate to and pretty enough to admire…If the bubbly, blond Duff isn't exactly the anti-Britney, she is at least the antidote" --Elizabeth Weitzman, The New York Daily News

"‘The Lizzie McGuire Movie’ is one of those films that are, quite simply, beyond criticism… It's a chance for fans to see Lizzie McGuire (Hilary Duff) out of the family room -- before they rent the DVD and see it in the family room again…a drama that doesn't try to be more than what it is: a romantic fantasy caper, mostly for teenage and preteen girls." --Desson Howe, The Washington Post