ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY RECOMMENDS: MOVIES

Review: 'Powerpuff Girls' full of energy

The Powerpuff Girls and their creator, Professor Utonium, share a moment in "The Powerpuff Girls Movie."

(ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY) -- Don't underestimate the groove quotient of Bubbles, Blossom, and Buttercup, the three little girls with superpowers who regularly save the world before bedtime on the Cartoon Network series ''The Powerpuff Girls.''

They may not have the boobies of ''Charlie's Angels'' and they certainly don't have the snark of ''Buffy the Vampire Slayer,'' but the three kindergarteners make up for their lack of irony with laser-power eyes, radical post-post-postfeminist blithe confidence, and some of the coolest retro-futuristic animation style this side of Gerald McBoing-Boing.

RESOURCES EW.COM: All about 'The Powerpuff Girls Movie'

"The Powerpuff Girls Movie" is, of course, just the TV series gone wide-screen, and the same constants apply: Their unconditionally accepting daddy-o guardian, Professor Utonium (voiced by Tom Kane), thinks the world of the babes he accidentally invented (when Chemical X spilled into the usual recipe of Sugar, Spice, and Everything Nice); Mojo Jojo (Roger L. Jackson), a maniacal monkey also high on Chem-X, wants to rule the world; and the girls just wanna have fun.

But those new to the series (created and directed here by Craig McCracken), as well as the already committed, will dig the anarchic Chicks Rule attitude and the snazzy art.

Bonus for the hip: The movie is preceded by a short and excellently loony cartoon from "Dexter's Laboratory," in which Dexter gets chicken pox and must ... scratch.

Grade: B