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Title: Entertaining as a cartoon, but kind of dumb
Review: My kids and I absolutely love the Wayside School books for their highly entertaining stories and for the joyfully clever ways they play with language and storytelling. Unfortunately, very little of that comes through to the movie. Sure, the movie fits in LOTS of elements from the books, but many of them are introduced inexplicably and have little role in the story. What's missing is the zany logic that makes the books so charming. If you know the books, you may enjoy the references, but the movie itself ends up being pretty standard cartoon slapstick. My five-year-old still enjoys watching it, but I was disappointed that the special intelligence and heart of Wayside School has mostly been lost.
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