Dir: Jim Fall. US. 2003. 93mins

After three, wildly successful seasons on the Disney Channel, tween queen Lizzie McGuire has made the leap to the big screen. First introduced to US audiences back in 2000 (the live action/animated series only began airing in the UK and other international markets a year ago), Lizzie is a favourite among girls aged six to 14, many of whom helped the film to a good debut in the US. Released by Buena Vista in the US as an astute piece of counter-programming against X-Men 2, the $25m The Lizzie McGuire Movie took $17.3m from 2,825 sites for a strong average of $6,138. However, the lack of a similar fan base overseas is likely to make chances of international success less obvious.

Lizzie was developed as an average kid - cute but not a knockout, likeable but not Miss Popularity, klutzy but not a complete dork - enduring the typical trials and tribulations of adolescence. The Lizzie McGuire Movie picks up where the TV series left off: as the 14-year old eponymous heroine (Duff, also in Agent Cody Banks) is finishing up middle school. In typical Lizzie fashion, she humiliates herself at junior high school graduation exercises by falling and bringing down curtains, chairs and all form of pomp and circumstance. Still reeling from embarrassment, she heads to Rome on a two-week school-sponsored trip. Among her travel mates are her best guy pal Gordo (Lamberg), her nemesis Kate (Brillaut), and her constant companion, an animated alter ego which represents her better judgement and subconscious thoughts.

In Rome, Lizzie is mistaken for local teenage pop star Isabella, even by idol's cute singing partner Paolo (Gellman), who spends the next few days zipping around Rome with Lizzie on his motorbike. In keeping with the film's PG-rating, the two carry on a flirtation so chaste it doesn't really qualify as a romance.

More schoolgirl fantasies seem to come true when Paolo asks Lizzie to stand in for Isabella at a televised music awards ceremony at which they must sing a duet (not so coincidentally, Disney Records has just released Duff's first album). But just before concert begins the real Isabella (Duff again, but with dark hair and an accent) returns to Rome.

McGuire is a hit with the pre-teen and tween set presumably because they see themselves in her. She is both wholesome enough and subversive enough to appeal to kids just spreading their wings but not yet ready to take flight (although some parents may blanch at Lizzy sneaking out of the hotel to meet Paolo). But any adult hoping for the knowing humour of a Shrek will be disappointed: it really is just for kids.

Duff may have been considered 'typical' when she was 12 and 13, but is now beginning to develop into a rather buxom young woman. It certainly strains credulity that she is here playing someone who is not in with the In Crowd. As one shocked father at the press screening was overhead to say: 'If my daughter looks like that at 15, I'm going to have to lock her in a closet.'

Prod co: Teen Life Productions
US dist: Buena Vista Pictures Distribution
Int'l dist: BVI
Exec prods: David Roessel, Terri Minksy
Prod: Stan Rogow
Scr: Susan Estelle Jansen, Ed Decter, John J. Struss
Cinematography: Jerzy Zielinski
Prod des: Douglas Higgins
Ed: Margie Goodspeed
Music: Cliff Eidelman
Main cast: Hilary Duff, Adam Lamberg, Yani Gellman, Hallie Todd, Robert Carradine, Ashlie Brillaut