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Supercross - The movie - DVD
2005/Rated
PG13/Fox
80 minutes
Cast:
Steve Howey,
Mike Vogel,
Cameron
Richardson,
Sophia Bush,
Aaron Carter,
Channing Tatum,
Robert Patrick,
Robert Carradine
Director:
Steve Boyum
Fear
nothing. Risk everything.
That's the tagline of this movie. It's too obvious a joke
and too easy of a set-up, so let's move onto the review.
Firstly, for those not in the know (which would include
yours truly before watching the movie)
Wikipedia has
Supercross defined as;
 An exciting, highly-competitive sport in which athletes
race high-performance off-road motorcycles on man-made
dirt tracks consisting of steep jumps and obstacles.
Supercross races are held almost exclusively inside
professional baseball and football stadiums in the United
States, Canada, Europe and Australia, but can also take
place outdoors, at venues such as the Daytona Motor
Speedway.
Modern supercross races are sanctioned and governed by
motorcycle associations such as the
American Motorcyclist Association, and typically
consist of a set number of qualifying races, heat races,
semi-finals and final races (called the "main event").
Race lengths can range from as few as 6 laps in some
qualifying races to 20 laps for the main event.
One
of the major media supporters of the sport is Clear
Channel, who not only own radio and television
stations both here and abroad, but also bankrolled the
SuperCross movie. A case of building it hoping they, the
masses, would come.
Maybe they will, maybe they won’t.
Critics have absolutely slammed this movie for everything
from the action sequences to overused cliché’s. Maybe
we’re just happy to see a film about riding, but it’s not
as bad as everyone seems to think it is.
Cliché’s are inherent in racing movies. There has to be
unethical, selfish competitors to play the role of
villain. Love interests from outside the sport that will
be lost at some point in the movie because of a
misunderstanding/frustration/angst will be featured. And
there will of course be the rebel without a clue
prominently played at front stage.
Two
parentless brothers using a humble existence of
pool-cleaning to support their passion for motorcycles,
passed onto them by the father. One brother lives life and
rides on the edge with reckless abandon, the other has raw
talent buried by a conservative nature which thinks away
victories. Hot lawyer in training several social levels
above the heroes and a tomboy of a rider who naturally
becomes hotter as the movie progresses are the future
girlfriends. This isn’t giving anything away, one becomes
romantically involved quicker than she can walk on the
screen and the other is as obvious as the advertising
plastered all over the screen.
Over
the next eighty minutes the boys fight corporate America
in racing, temperamental prima donnas, tattooed bad guys
as well as each other. Once again, this isn’t giving away
the movie, it’s pretty standard fare told with some
flashes of eye-catching brilliance, but mostly wasted
moments.
Maybe they could’ve hired some experienced director to
smooth over the mandatory cliché’s, instead the
powers-that-be hired Steve Boyum, who's directorial
filmography consists of Meet the Deedles,
Stepsister from the Planet Weird, Mom's Got a Date
With a Vampire, Slap Shot 2: Breaking the Ice,
and Timecop: The Berlin Decision.
Not
to worry, when in doubt flood the screen with good-looking
young actors and a few quick lines. Well we have the good
looking actors.
The
young cute kid from Sisterhood of the Traveling pants and
the young cute girl from One Tree Hill shine their pearly
whites across the screen.
Unfortunately the good looking actors, potential racing
action and the story's foundation are sabotaged by the
directing and editing of the film. There are so many
subplots floating throughout the film which somehow exit
stage right without so much of an acknowledgement it
leaves more confusion than frustration.
Without giving too much of the movie away here are some
examples of just a few subplots which seem to have that
David Copperfield touch;
-
The rich law student goes from being an unobtainable
fancy they meet while cleaning the father’s pool to
turning up at a race throwing herself at the appropriate
brother within ten minutes of arriving.
-
The boys meet someone who used to ride with their
father, even belonging to the same gang. The whole scene
is apparently being set-up for the ominous line, “I
don’t know if anyone ever told you what your father was
really like”, but nothing happens. Nada. The whole
subplot disappears into thin air.
But
looking at this movie from a motorcycle point of view,
bikes get a lot of screen time and there’s even the clever
trick of having multiple shots of the racing on the screen
at the same time. The movie can not only be cute, but
funny with some clever inclusions of different types of
motorcycles.
Is
the ending obvious? Absolutely. Does the director take the
best way to get there? Probably not. Apart from having to
fight the age old problem when filming any sport with
numerous participants of knowing who is who, there was a
conspicuous conflict of having a movie style ending but
wanting to keep it within the realms of the sports
reality.
Regardless of what many of the films critics may’ve said
or written, it succeeded in one area with this viewer. Not
two weeks after watching this film I came across a
Supercross match while channel surfing. I stopped and
watched the entire race, and when you take off your rose
colored glasses everyone will admit that was the main
purpose of the movie.
Bottom
Line - For riders, worth the motorcycle scenes and
maybe your daughter will stick around and watch it with you
when she see's all the younger familiar faces.
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