What do you do with a movie about skateboarders that hasn’t already been done? Fill it with the same lazy clichés we’ve seen thousands of times in worse comedy films. I mean has there ever been a good movie about skateboarding aside from “Dogtown and Z-Boys”? I doubt it. There are three elements/concepts films have revolved around and relied on for a plot in the past that have never worked regardless of how exciting they try to make it, and regardless of how good a director is: skiing (cannot be done), skateboarding, and computers or typing on a computer (FYI “Wargames” invented the sub-genre).
Tag Archives: sports
Spellbound (2002)
A parent in “Spellbound” makes a point of saying, “The National Spelling Bee has been around for nearly a hundred years, and it’s a part of Americana that has been somewhat brushed aside.” I’m paraphrasing of course, but they make a good point. We live in a country where the strongest and prettiest are revered, a country where we strive to be the strongest and prettiest among our peers. “Spellbound” is an apt title and a glowing portrait of eight kids from humble beginnings who are training desperately for the national spelling bee. What comes with the territory of making it into the National spelling bee aside from adulation and respect is a lot of pressure which is set upon by parents who unwillingly and willingly apply pressure to their children and high expectations that they strive to reach.
Drumline (2002)
What “Drumline” does is give the American audience a perspective into something entirely fresh and original to watch while focusing on a relatively obscure practice called band and succeeds in every way shape and form possible. Every character in the film takes this practice seriously and treats it as if it’s life or death, and we can see why. It’s evident that there’s no glamorizing or watering down of any kind in the film, what we’re watching is in fact reality with the facade of Hollywood and it pulled me in right from the opener. It’s a shame films of this ilk don’t make it into theaters often.
Undisputed (2002)
From the beginning I could tell this would be a stinker purely from the way the movie derives from true life events. The character “Iceman” could purely be based on Mike Tyson alone, but fails where it has a chance to invoke some truly witty social commentary. Ving Rhames tries his hardest to look conniving and arrogant but most of the time comes off as laughable and outrageous looking like a hokey but smarter Mike Tyson imitation. Wesley Snipes also attempts to pull off the gruff silent hero persona with skills, but fails as well coming off as a mere caricature with no depth to him at all. The movie has a primary problem that plagues this: It has no focus. I wasn’t sure if this movie had any main character to begin with, because the movie doesn’t focus on any of the characters in particular.
Rollerball (2002)
Now, granted, I’ve never seen the original “Rollerball” starring the great James Caan, but I think I can assure you, that it might have been better than this fiasco. The movie force-feeds us predictable and uninspired action scenes of people rolling around on their amped up blades and motorcycles as different growling and hooting players wearing ridiculous costumes and helmets bash each others skulls in etching to grab a hold of the rollerball attempting to score a point for a specific country as different announcers from the countries broadcasting the games holler at us through the screen play-by-play.
Hardball (2001)
Connor O’Neil is a man out of his luck. He’s a no good gambling addict who constantly fails at his bets. He’s also got a bunch of guys after him who will stop at nothing to kill him for their money. Connor turns to a rich friend who offers to pay him 500 dollars a week if he agrees to coach an inner-city baseball team. Desperate, he agrees.
The Fast and the Furious (2001)
“The Fast and the Furious” is a fun movie. The action and fast hot rods will get any viewer pumped up with very high adrenaline action scenes that are all excellent if a little farfetched. We get to see a lot of cool stunts performed with the great looking hot rods and they never fail to deliver with the engrossing hot rod action. One technique in this movie that I did enjoy was the way whenever a hot rod would rev up, we’d zoom through its engines to see it start. It was an unconventional plot element to bring us in to the moment, but very cool.
That said, “The Fast and the Furious” is a virtual “Point Break” Xerox copy replacing surfing with racing. We know the cop is going to fall in love with the girl, we know he’s going to get close to the leader of the gang, we know he’s going to find out, and we know in the end he’s going to let the leader get away. Star Paul Walker is also pretty stiff in his turn here. There’s also Vin Diesel who despite being a bit over the top at times is at least an intriguing villain and potential anti-hero. Diesel as character Dom is the coolest character in the entire film, and he steals a lot of scenes from co-star Walker.
Michelle Rodriguez who’s grossly underused but still manages to get her few moments in to the action and fights, and there’s Jordana Brewster who garners a shockingly compelling sub-plot with Diesel as his sister and potential love interest for Walker’s character. While I wasn’t terribly surprised or kept on the edge of my seat, “The Fast and the Furious” is at least good action fodder with it unabashed silliness at the surface of every racing scene and bit of dialogue. It’s a cheesy movie, but it’s a fun cheesy movie. Though flawed, “The Fast and the Furious” is a fun, dumb, action-packed piece of B grade genre fun.