Late in The Powerpuff Girls Movie, there's a stretch so wildly inventive that it throws the film off its equilibrium, sending it hurtling into outer space just to recover. In it, the film's simian villain, Mojo Jojo (voice by Roger L. Jackson), upon assuming power via a species uprising, suddenly finds himself challenged by a series of ape Iagos, each of whom unveils a progressively more deranged plot for world domination. The scene ultimately dead-ends, as the plans amount to little, but it hints at the darker, weirder, more unhinged film that could have been. Directed by Craig McCracken, who adapts his widely adored and endlessly marketed Cartoon Network hit, The Powerpuff Girls takes place in the retro-futuristic dystopia of Townsville, where the populace is ruled by fear and the mayor is an idiot child-man, wholly reliant on his buxom assistant. The accidental creation of a kindly but absentminded professor, the Powerpuff Girls attempt to fit into society, but learn, like Spider-Man before them, that with great power comes great responsibility. Ostracized for their special powers and chastised for destroying much of their community while playing tag, the girls find an unlikely kindred spirit in Mojo Jojo, who tricks them into helping him with his diabolical plan to rule Townsville. For a creation that thrives on speed and energy, The Powerpuff Girls gets off to a surprisingly slow, unsteady start. The action picks up considerably with the arrival of Jojo, who so thoroughly dominates the film that its title almost seems like a misnomer: Whenever he's onscreen, it's his show all the way. Like the best children's programs, The Powerpuff Girls has mastered the fine art of appealing equally to kids and to their jaded older siblings. The Powerpuff Girls Movie offers a similar mixture of darkness and light, but the anarchic wit of the film's Mojo Jojo segment is so bracingly funny and sharp that the Girls' sunny affability doesn't stand a chance. If all of The Powerpuff Girls Movie lived up to the inventiveness of its peaks, it would be a classic on par with the Toy Story films. As it is, it's a good movie infused with moments of greatness.