The star shines in 'Judy Moody'

Jordana Beatty, the Australian sparkplug playing the flame-haired heroine of "Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer," is worth the considerable effort it takes to get through this quasi-comedy, which fell victim to success before it even hit the screen. Pre-ordained by the books' popularity, the movie lacks sufficient story -- thanks to a screenplay by author Megan McDonald and Kathy Waugh -- to prop itself up. Doubly disappointing, "Judy" seems to have been modeled on the most vacuous of Disney Channel fodder, so if you're a parent herding a birthday party into a theater, you know what you're in for.

Still, there's the occasional glimpse of intelligence, some from young Beatty, some from director John Schultz ("Aliens in the Attic"), who has given the film a look that puts the weirdest spin possible on all his oddball characters. They include Judy, her brother Stink (Parris Mosteller), her best pal Frank-Who-Eats-Paste (Preston Bailey) and -- most notably -- Aunt Opal (Heather Graham), Judy's "guerrilla-artist" hippie relation, who is assigned to make Judy's summer livable, possibly memorable, and to appease the few heterosexual adult males who are somehow coerced into buying tickets.

Despite the characters' various charms, the movie essentially amounts to a daisy chain of hyperactive episodes that have nothing to do with the narrative, such as it is (a hunt for Bigfoot occupies more screen time than it needs to). What they do provide is one opportunity after another for smashing, crashing, racing and other forms of slapstick, aka mild violence, indicating a poverty of imagination. Like any shiny object, "Judy Moody" will keep certain audiences distracted, but won't engender much love -- except, perhaps, for Miss Beatty.
 

RATING PG-13 (mild rude humor and language)