Phineas and Ferb the Movie: Candace Against the Universe
For many growing up in the late 2000's Phineas and Ferb served as a staple for family friendly media. The show offered charming audiences with smart comedy and a genuine celebration of adventure and creativity with a good amount of personality thrown into the mix. Despite many audiences dropping the show before its ultimate conclusion in 2015, there remained a healthy amount of nostalgia for the show. Disney heard this loud and clear and, being the gods when it comes to exploiting nostalgia, carefully calculated their move and struck when the iron was hot, bringing the show back for a feature length film streaming exclusively on Disney+. While it might be expected that a movie released years after a show's finale might have some grand plan to answer a long-time mystery or to give some direction to a character — such as in El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie — Phineas and Ferb the Movie: Candace Against the Universe instead picks up right where the show left off with an episodic adventure that overall has little purpose beyond being a fun adventure.
For the most part Phineas and Ferb the Movie: Candace Against the Universe felt exactly like an episode of the show, for better or worse. The writing is on par with everything else the show has had to offer, both giving witty humor and genuine enjoyment simultaneously. While the plot is nothing new and fails to be memorable — even in the standards of the adventures shown on the main show — it is far from terrible and offers an inoffensive backbone for the film which clearly is not aiming super high with its goals. The only real area where the film does try to expand itself is with the character of Candace (Ashley Tisdale). The writers attempt to turn her character from an annoying sister to a tragic teenager desperate for attention. But to say that this delivers something truly impactful or even memorable is far from the truth. Even the previous Phineas and Ferb movie, Phineas and Ferb the Movie: Across the 2nd Dimension, seems to have higher cinematic ambitions for its narrative.
While the comedy and general nostalgia hold the movie up despite the more forgettable plot, the best and worst of the film actually comes from the voice acting. Disney knew that in order to get the Phineas and Ferb fans behind the movie, they needed to do it right, which meant getting the original voice cast back together — there was only 1 major recast from the main group. While this does help punch the nostalgic heart strings and the cast do put a lot of effort into keeping what made their voice performance iconic in the first place (Ashley Tisdale especially), this is also where the biggest negative of the film comes in. Vincent Martella returns as the voice of Phineas and is clearly putting in effort, only for the performance to sound forced and annoying. Any of the natural delivery or genuine enjoyment found from his performance is gone, with every line spoken from the character feeling out of place and genuinely difficult to sit through. There is no simple answer to how the film should have handled this as it is a role nearly impossible to recast, but undoubtedly it was the one part of the film that clearly aged in a negative sense and consistently ruined the flow of the film.
Phineas and Ferb the Movie: Candace Against the Universe is far from being a must-watch effort but is also far from being painful or disrespectful to the original series. It is a blatant attempt to capitalize on the nostalgia for the series with no other clear purpose for existence. But it does so in an inoffensive manner that still allows fans of the original series to find enjoyment. In the stressful times that this film was released in, it is an easy recommendation for fans of the show who are looking for a genuinely fun and light viewing experience. However, for those who haven't seen the show already there is nothing here that requires attention or the time of day.
