Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus is directed by Jenny Goldberg and Jay Wyatt, and written by Jhonen Vasquez, based on his Nickelodeon cartoon of the same name. Years have passed after Zim (Richard Horvitz) went into hiding, but now he's ready to begin Phase 2 of his plan. This prompts his rival, Dib (Andy Berman) to come back as well, but without many believing in him, including his dad, he's gonna need help to fight Zim this time.
Growing up, I watched a lot of cartoons that focused entirely on being funny, dumb, and random (something that is still being attempted, even in adult cartoons), but there have been very few exceptions: Invader Zim is one of the only few shows that I can immediately bring up as an example that did it perfectly. It was like my generation’s Rick and Morty, where the main focus is on the absolutely bizarre nature of one’s imagination with the sci-fi and horror genre, but poking fun at it as well. Going back and binging through it on Hulu, it’s impressive how it still holds up even today.
While the show didn’t last long in production (with about 27 episodes made and several recorded, but never animated), it gave us one of the most devoted cult fanbases Nickelodeon has ever had with a show. Conventions have been held in the show’s honor, the cast has kept the fan’s love alive through meetups and q&as, and even Vasquez went on to do a comic continuation of the show. With this newfound love for the show sparking up again, Nick approached Vasquez of a new movie special with the cast returning one last time. However, it was met with some hefty setbacks, particularly with where it was going to be released; after Hey Arnold! The Jungle Movie aired on the channel, it was met with very low ratings, due to the current audiences not being that focused on television schedules as older people are, and newer audiences not exactly knowing who any of these characters are from a twenty year old show. So after cutting a deal with Netflix with Rocko’s Modern Life: Static Cling and Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus, they finally found their place to truly meet the audience demand.
After sitting through the movie twice, and revisiting the show in between those viewings, I can safely say that Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus is both one of the best tv to movie adaptations, but also my favorite animated film of the year. That’s not an exaggeration, I genuinely loved this movie more than Toy Story 4, Frozen II, and How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World. Even if your someone who has never seen the show before, you can still find yourself enjoying the movie as its own thing, even after picking up where the show left off (not counting the Christmas Special, the last episode in canon was “The Frycook From All That Space”). It does help to watch a few episodes, such as “Tak: The Hideous New Girl”, since there are a few characters that reference certain events, but nothing you wouldn’t get.
For television 2D animation, this is probably some of the best I’ve seen from Nick in a while. The action scenes, the song sequences, the climax within the Florpus, it was all so captivating. While the art style might be a tad different from show’s sharper and grimeier design, you have to understand that it had been over a decade since Vasquez and his team worked on Invader Zim, and an artist’s style can change overtime. While it does have a brighter and softer feel to it, they still keep some of the more darker design choices in tact. The only nitpick I have is with Dib’s skin color (Dib’s been his room for a long time, but got tanner); while I understand that Dib’s design is sort of based on Vasquez himself, and he had also developed a darker tone over the years, in the show’s context doesn’t make sense.
Aside from that, these characters are still just as memorable as when we last left them. Richard Horvitz and Andy Berman are absolute magic together; as Zim and Dib, it doesn’t feel like a day has passed that these two weren’t having fun with each other, whether it was the show or this film. Their timing with the absurdity always had me cracking up, simply from how their inflections of the lines just catches you off guard. I also loved this movie’s theme of appeasing fathers, and how different both Zim and Dib go about trying to prove themselves worthy of respect; and you get to see how each of them represents screwing up to appease them and realizing that they never needed to prove anything to anyone. While it does seem cliche to have those “tender moments” in the theatrical movie adaptations of cartoons, they do execute them in a way that does get to you, but still keep in tone with Vasquez’s humor, particularly with the space prison scenes. Rikki Simmons as GIR always had me laughing, especially his “Peace is Nice” song that had me rolling with laughter. Melissa Fahn and Roger Bumpass as Gaz and her dad, Professor Membrane, are both equally hilarious, especially Bumpass who sounds like he’s having a blast. While he may carry the dumb dad trope of cartoons, he at least makes him one of the funniest characters in his delivery.
With the success of this special and Static Cling, along with the impending loom of the streaming wars up ahead, Nickelodeon and Netflix have signed a deal to produce more revivals of classic content and more; does this mean we’ll get more Invader Zim? I would hope so. After shows like Twelve Forever and Voltron found success on Netflix, along with a little more leniency toward what you can show or do in a cartoon, I think there’s more to get out of than one would think.
Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus was a great return to one of my favorite cartoons, and I’m highly recommending you check it out. Whether you remember watching the show on tv or not, this is one slice of pop culture that I think everyone should give a watch to. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and it’s only an hour and ten minutes, so it never overstays its welcome. And I still standby my comment that this is my favorite animated film of the year, and I won’t back from that.
Rating: A+
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