Hiaasen, a columnist and novelist not normally known for kiddie lit, has had only one other movie made from his work, that being the Demi Moore vehicle Striptease -- a strip-flick that most everyone agrees did not live up to the very modest standard set by Showgirls. Hoot is a better adaptation, but not by a whole lot. Set in the town of Coconut Cove, presumably just down the road from Margaritaville, it's a fairly typical kids-battle-evil-businessmen-to-save-animals story. Young Roy Eberhardt (Logan Lerman) is a kid whose parents move constantly because of his father's job with the Justice Department. The latest transfer, from Montana to Florida, is particularly difficult for Roy, who felt at home in the mountains. But then one day on the school bus, he spies a skinny blond kid (Cody Linley) running barefoot toward a golf course and becomes obsessed with figuring out who he is.
The mystery kid, who is only ever known by his nickname of "Mullet Fingers" -- not because of an affinity for touching redneck hairdos, but rather due to his skill at catching small fish with his hands -- is something of an aspiring eco-terrorist, wreaking mini-havoc on the construction site of a new pancake restaurant by pulling up measuring stakes, unleashing snakes, and dropping live alligators in the porta-potties. He does it all for the love of burrowing owls, a rare species that will be bulldozed over if the pancake people have their way.
Roy becomes inspired to help out and in the process also befriends Mullet Fingers' tough sister, Beatrice (Larson), who proves invaluable in fighting off the local dumbass delinquent kid (impressive newcomer Eric Phillips).
Writer-director Wil Shriner has managed to make Hiaasen's writing blander for the big screen, but it doesn't help matters that, of the three young leads, only Larson has any charisma. Linley is simply annoying, while Lerman, who has played younger versions of Mel Gibson, Adam Garcia, and Ashton Kutcher in other movies, seems to have been directed simply to stare into the camera. And for a movie called Hoot, there isn't a lot of owl action. The boys seem more interested in fishing; naturally, they let all the fish go as soon as they catch them.
