A couple of weekends ago, I watched Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius. I have seen it before; I even watched the cartoon spinoff. However, it had probably been a decade since I had last watched it. Now, I realize how crazy of an image it is.

This boy genius has seemingly unlimited intellect, something that is neither regulated nor seemingly true for any other character. In most ways, his town is like any suburban American town, and the other characters are everyday people.

Except Jimmy. He is something of an unchecked genius, and when considering the limits of our current technology, it is incredible what he creates. AI, in the form of his fully realistic robotic dog. Portals in his basement. (While not in this movie, I could not ignore the “Timmy Jimmy Power Hour.”) He even, as far as it seems, becomes not only the first kid to go to space, but part of the first middle school grade to leave the galaxy. And the first to make contact with aliens.

It is difficult to pin this in a particular subsection of science fiction. This movie is not post-apocalyptic, nor first contact, nor about technological ethics. It takes many of the things held in great importance in sci-fi — aliens, mad scientists, intelligence, space travel — and makes them casual, givens even. It is one of the few children’s science fiction movies I remember watching, and is ridiculously bizarre. But definitely worth the ride.