The Gabriel Garza Movie

The Gabriel Garza Movie is a 2002 American animated adventure comedy film based on the NBC animated television series of the same name. Produced by Gingo Animation for Universal Pictures, it was the second film from Gingo and was directed by Michael Wildshill (in his directorial debut). In the film, Vio has a plan to get rid of Gabriel's family once and for all, so Gabriel, Roge, Leno, Cole, Loy, the Elves, Desiree, Jan, Claire, and their new friend Laura venture out to save Gabriel's family and stop Vio and his minions.

The film features the original voices from the series including Debi Derryberry, Rob Paulsen, E.G. Daily, Kath Soucie, Billy West, Doug Lawrence, and Charlie Adler, with guest roles from Jodi Benson, Dan Aykroyd, Richard Kind, and John Goodman. The series' creator Geo G. wrote and executive produced the film, but he had a clause in his contract preventing him from directing this film while he directed 2002's Cland Ann: The Movie; therefore, Wildshill was selected to direct.

The film was released on July 31, 2002, and received mixed to negative reviews from critics. It earned over $89 million worldwide on its $60 million budget; despite being a modest box office success, it fell short of Universal's financial expectations; as a result, Gingo abandoned traditional animation in favor of computer animation shortly after the film's release. It is currently Gingo Animation's lowest-grossing film, as well as its lowest-rated film. The film served as the series finale of the original Gabriel Garza series, as no further episodes were made to continue from where it left off; however, the franchise was rebooted in 2011 with a computer-animated film of the same name.

Plot
Coming Soon!

Voice Cast

 * Debi Derryberry as Gabriel Garza / Desiree Garza / Mrs. Picksit
 * Rob Paulsen as Roge Garza
 * E.G. Daily as Leno Garza / Claire Jones
 * Kath Soucie as Cole Garza / Christine Garza
 * Billy West as the Elves / Jan Soto
 * Doug Lawrence as Loy Garza
 * Charlie Adler as Marvin Garza
 * Jim Cummings as Vio
 * Jodi Benson as Laura
 * Jeff Bennett as Big Guy / Additional Voices
 * Dan Aykroyd as Warren Parker
 * Richard Kind as Darren Parker
 * John Goodman as Mr. Mockles
 * Jess Harnell, Bob Bergen and Carlos Alazraqui as Vio's Henchmen

Additional voices are provided by Michael Wildshill, Laraine Newman, Dee Bradley Baker, Tom Kane, Tara Strong, Rodger Bumpass, Mona Marshall, David Silverman, Maurice LaMarche, Rob Carpenter, Jim Ward, Geo G., Tom Kenny, John DiMaggio, Corey Burton, Audel LaRoque, Kari Wahlgren, Jason Marsden, Catherine Cavadini, Jennifer Hale, Gary Hall, Gregg Berger, Steve Samono, Frank Welker, Lauren Tom and Danny Mann.

Production
Rumors about a possible Gabriel Garza film started since the beginning of the series. Creator Geo G. wrote a treatment for a Gabriel Garza feature film at Gingo. It was to center on a dilemma for Gabriel, but it was never pitched. However, in 1998, Geo and the rest of the Gingo team began working on a theatrical film based on Gabriel Garza by putting their finances into Script Development.

Animation
The film was animated by Wang Film Productions/Cuckoo's Nest Studio in Taiwan and Sunwoo Animation in Korea.

Release
The Gabriel Garza Movie was initially scheduled for release on November 22, 2002, but was pushed back to July 31, 2002 to avoid competition with other films released during the Thanksgiving season.

Marketing

 * The official teaser trailer was released on May 11, 2001, and was shown before films such as Shrek, Atlantis: The Lost Empire,The Princess Diaries, and Rat Race.
 * The first theatrical trailer was released on October 5, 2001, and was shown in front of films such as Max Keeble's Big Move, Monsters Inc., Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, and Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius.
 * The second theatrical trailer was released on March 15, 2002, and was shown in front of films such as Ice Age, Spider-Man, and Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones . 
 * TV Spots began to air between June and July 2002.

Home Media
The Gabriel Garza Movie was released on VHS and DVD on November 19, 2002. A 3D version of the film was released on Blu-ray 3D on December 9, 2014, along with the other Gabriel Garza films. The films were sold separately in 2016.

Music
The music for the film was composed and conducted by James L. Venable. The soundtrack to the film was released by Atlantic Records on July 19, 2002.

Track Listing
Coming Soon!

Gallery
Coming Soon!

Critical Response
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 38%, based on 173 reviews, with an average rating of 4.8/10, making it the first Gingo Animation film to garner a "rotten" certification. The site's consensus reads: "Bland, predictable, and cliched, The Gabriel Garza Movie is a rather disappointing conclusion to the Gabriel Garza series." Another review aggregator, Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score to reviews from mainstream critics, gave the film an average score of 44 out of 100, based on 31 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

Claudia Puig of USA Today stated that "With so many plot holes and stupid scenes, The Gabriel Garza Movie has unexpectedly destroyed the entire Gabriel franchise. Who thought this was a good idea? Really, how could they mess everything up? It feels like an one-hour series finale of Gabriel Garza that should've made for TV instead of movie theaters." Critics generally criticized the confusing story with numerous plot holes, some unnecessary scenes that do not fit, weak and unfunny humor and clichéd dialogue, while also feeling the film lacked warmth and charm from the original show.

Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave the film two stars, stating, "The Gabriel Garza Movie, Gingo's first truly negative response, has a predictably weird plot that even tries hard enough to follow the usual wit of the show, but rather ends up being a horrible end of the glasses-wearing cartoon boy we all know in love." Entertainment Weekly critic Owen Gleiberman said, "If it's even not as good as the Gabriel Garza show, The Gabriel Garza Movie was a complete disaster to the series for the fans of the original. I don't even care if the animation is good and the characters have their usual self from the show, it's just awful that Gingo and its creative team led by Geo G. should've been shamed of themselves."

Conversely, Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, saying "The Gabriel Garza Movie is a truly touching and hilarious family adventure featuring Gabriel Garza with a blast of humor and soundtrack, as well as a comical plot from the folks at Gingo Animation". Jeffrey Lyons from NBC-TV also enjoyed the film and considered it "sharply hilarious."

Box Office
On the film's opening weekend, the film earned $8,649,793 for a $2,227 average from 2,604 theaters, and $10,392,926 since its Wednesday start. It reached fifth place at the box office and faced early competition to Spider-Man, Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, Scooby-Doo, and Lilo &amp; Stitch, as well as facing competition to two TV series-based animated films, Hey Arnold!: The Movie and The Powerpuff Girls Movie. The film closed on November 14, 2002, after earning $27,705,196 in the United States and Canada and $51,694,388 overseas, for a worldwide total of $89,851,603.

Following the disappointing box office weekend, financial analysts predicted that Universal Pictures would be forced to have write-down the production costs, which totaled more than $100 million. Following the later release of The Truth About Charlie which also met poor box office returns, it was reported that Universal would have to write-down about $80 million.

Main
To see the main transcript of the film, click here.

Trailers
To see the transcript for the trailers of the film, click here.