I seem to have found myself reading a lot of other reviews for Horrid Henry the Movie and the general consensus is that it's only an 'okay' film at best.

Much of the criticism comes from the fact that (apparently) the child actors portraying the characters in the original Horrid Henry books/TV cartoons, don't look anything like the source material. My argument to that is - this is a film, with REAL people. If real children looked like the caricature-like drawings in the books and cartoons then I would be seriously worried about which freak show they were drafted in from! Then much has been said about how (apparently) it doesn't stay true to the 'spirit' of the original source material. My argument would be that this is a FILM. If you like the books - great - they're books. If you like the cartoons - great - they're cartoons. Keep on reading and watching them. A film cannot be like a book and, unless it's a cartoon-film, not much like the cartoon either. The film takes many of the ideas and inspirations from the book and cartoon and expands on it. It has to. How else would it be able to stretch it out to an hour and a half? Also, people have said that the plot/story isn't up to scratch. I feel I have to spell it out - it's a KIDS' MOVIE. If you want plot twists and character development followed by shocks and surprises, watch the DaVinci Code. This film is aimed at children. Therefore, it has a story that they can understand.

Did I like it? No. But then I'm nearly thirty-five. However, my six year old daughter dragged me to the cinema twice to watch it (the second time I even fell asleep). Now Horrid Henry the Movie is on my television screen at home and my daughter is demanding it for her birthday. In short, let the kids be the judge of it.

Note: special kudos to Anjelica Huston for her great performance as Miss Battle-Axe.

It cracks me up when adults review films aimed at children and give them a battering. This does pretty much what it says on the tin - my 3 and 6 year olds have watched this many times and it's pretty bearable even as an adult. I am happy to be a little (!) older than the target audience. A decent effort with CGIs too to be fair. And can anyone tell me of a film where the 3D effects HAVEN'T been a gratuitous waste of time!?

In short, my six year old daughter now wants to be a rock star and considers herself to be too cool for school.

Oh, err, hold on a sec.... :-)

There are three kinds of movies that I really can't stand. One is a movie that is style over substance with no attempt made at adding substance, two is a movie that is completely pretentious, and three are children's movies that think children are completely stupid so they don't try. In case you haven't guessed, "Horrid Henry: The Movie" fits in with the third category. "Horrid Henry" is a move that does not know what it's about and relies on all sorts of things to keep the audience's attention.

The annoying thing about "Horrid Henry" is that the movie has a million different things going on in it, and still almost nothing happens within the whole movie. the principal of a private school (Richard E. Grant) bribes two school inspectors (Metin and Timur Ahmet) to purposely fail a public school in order to get the student's parents to have to pay to send their kids to the private school. This has happened to several schools already and now the school that Henry goes to is the next domino to fall. Henry and a group of other students, including his arch nemesis Moody Margret (Scarlett Stitt) and his brother Perfect Peter (Ross Marron) join forces to save the school.

The movie loses focus on what it is trying to do about halfway through the movie when Henry is sent to a girl's school by his rich aunt (Helen Lederer) because she thinks he's a girl. There, he runs into Moody Margaret, and this part is supposed to be used to show they hate the girls school and decide to join forces together to save their school so they don't have to go to the girl's school. This part of the movie goes on for at least fifteen minutes, serves very little purpose to the movie other than to add some terrible attempts at comedy and lengthen the movie with something that could be done in five minutes.

The character of Henry (Theo Stevenson) is given two side-stories that tie into the movie, yet don't lead anywhere. Henry says he wants to be a musical sensation, but halfway through the movie that is dropped. Then, he has an arc where he learned how to spell 'homework' and it looks like he's taking school seriously now, but then it turns out he isn't. While he and his team do manage to save the school from closing, everything is back to the way it was at the beginning of the film other than the principal of the other school and the inspectors are arrested. No characters change and there is no lingering effects from the event.

The film throws so many visuals at you that it becomes headache-inducing and even starts to make the movie slip towards that style over substance junk that I hate so much. There are a number of graphics and visual effects in the movie that make no sense and add nothing to the plot, like when Margaret throws a water balloon at Henry, there is a random sequence of him dodging the balloon using random graphics, but it adds nothing to the story.

With a story that goes every which way without any real reason for it, dumb graphic effects, an unlikable protagonist, and a mess of a script, "Horrid Henry" The Movie" is not only a terrible movie, it is intelligence insulting and just leaves you feeling tired and depressed after watching it. With so little a plot to follow and zero pacing to the story, this 93 minute piece of garbage feels like it's two and a half hours long.