MAX KEEBLE'S BIG MOVE — ★ ½ — Alex D. Linz, Larry Miller, Zena Grey, Josh Peck, Nora Dunn, Robert Carradine; rated PG (slapstick violence, vulgarity)

The premise of "Max Keeble's Big Move" seemed to have potential: Max, a seventh-grader who is chronically bullied by bigger kids, his principal, some teachers and even an ice cream truck driver, learns he is about to move to another city, so he takes revenge on his way out of town.

Then his parents change their plans and Max is staying put, meaning he has to face the music for all the mayhem he caused in his payback plot.

Or does he? I took my relatively bright, sensible 7-year-old daughter — neither bully nor victim herself — to a screening and asked her afterward what she thought was the lesson of the movie.

"Don't beat up bullies," she replied.

Oops.

The ambiguous moral of the story is just one way in which Disney's latest misses its mark. It's an unfunny movie packaged as a comedy that hopes to make a few bucks at the box office on its way to too many replays on the Disney Channel.

The plight of Max (Alex D. Linz of "Home Alone 3") is hard to believe because his parents (Nora Dunn and Robert Carradine) are completely oblivious to it, as are the few teachers who aren't part of the problem. His best friend (Josh Peck) practically begs for trouble by wearing a flannel bathrobe over his clothes every day. Even Max and their buddy Megan (Zena Grey) don't use his real name. They just call him Robe.

Larry Miller plays kid-hating, power-hungry Principal Jindraike in over-the-top cartoonish fashion, as if director Tim Hill believes kids can't distinguish a grown-up jerk from a standard gruff-voiced authority figure unless the characterization knocks them upside the head.

Jindraike and the rest of the staff are clueless about one of the student body's daily rituals, when they gather sheepishly around prime thug Troy McGinty (Noel Fisher) to read the name of his victim of the day emblazoned on his T-shirt.

The biggest problem in "Max Keeble's Big Move" is there's no satisfying resolution to the bullies' bad behavior. Sure, the mean kids are momentarily wedged in a garbage bin, the victims of one of their own preferred pranks, while Jindraike is being chased by animals attracted to his pheromone-laced breath spray. But none of them has been set straight by a higher-up nor seen the error of his ways. Why are Max and his friends so darn happy at the end? They're just going to get roughed up even worse tomorrow.

Schoolyard bullying is a touchy issue these days, having been pinpointed as the root of many larger crises such as school shootings. Too bad "Max Keeble" missed the opportunity to teach kids something about it.

"Max Keeble's Big Move" is rated PG for slapstick violence and mischief, as well as surprisingly crude humor (both flatulence and sexual). Running time: 86 minutes.

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E-MAIL: jeff@desnews.com