Akeelah and the Bee (2006)

Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Boring, over-political, tech fuzed mess

An Exercise In Nonsense

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

This is just a terrific movie. I rented it for my daughter when she was much younger. We watched it twice when she was around the age of 4 or so. Thoroughly enjoyed it then. I mentioned it to her recently and she didn't really remember it. Consequently, we watched it again a short while ago (she is now 11). She really enjoyed it and I did too. I almost never watch movies more than once. This one I have seen three times and enjoyed it each time. Highly recommended.

Before I even start, let me tell you who I am. First and foremost, I am a 61 year old father of five and sucker for feel good movies that are squeaky clean. I love movies that hit me emotionally, have good character development, and likable characters. I also love movies that feature any level of character redemption, where bad people become good. When I leave a movie, I don't want to feel depressed. When all is said and done, I think there's a longing in each human heart for a happy ending. I actually believe that this longing is rooted in our, mostly unconscious, longing to know God and believe in His ability to make even the darkest circumstance work out in the end.Given all that criteria, this movie is a perfect ten for me. I have probably watched it ten times. Every time I watch it I have tears streaming down my face. I used to try to get all my kids and their friends to watch it and, for some reason, they usually are not as impressed as I am. It seems that the younger the viewer, the less likely they are to rate the movie highly. Most of my older adult friends love it. I feel pretty confident in saying that if you loved August Rush, you'll love this movie.

Uplifting story about a young girl who's father has died, her mother works to support her and the girl seems alone in the world in many ways. She goes to school in a poor neighborhood that doesn't have all of the resources for her to have the best education possible. One thing that she does have is words. Her intellect and her knowledge for words are great and her school needs help with getting it on the map and they want to use Akeelah to help show that their children at the school need the same advantages other students get. Akeelah wins a spelling bee and then is coached by a man telling her that she needs to learn different words and to be able to break them down and know their origins...Akeelah eventually learns a lot about herself, her family, her neighborhood and she reaches for the stars and doesn't let fear hold her back.I always thought it was just a stupid kids film about a spelling Bee, but I watched it and was rather touched by the message here. No one should let the place they come from or the people around them stop them from dreaming big and trying to do the best they can in life. Life is not written in stone for you when you are born and anyone has the power to rise above.Laurence Fisburne, Angela Bassett, Curtis Armstrong and Keke Palmer do wonderful jobs acting here.This is a good drama and it has some powerful messages. 6/10 stars

My first reaction to this movie when I heard of it was that it was just another of the now typical "underdog overcomes the odds" type of movie that's all too common today. I expected it, therefore, to be a decent movie (most of them are) but not really great. I was surprised. This movie really was superbly put together. It has an air of authenticity about it even though it's not based on reality, and I was absolutely blown away by young Keke Palmer, who played Akeelah perfectly. Akeelah is an 11 year old girl and spelling phenom who attends a rundown inner city school in South Los Angeles. Her principal recognizes her spelling prowess and convinces her to enter the competition leading to the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Palmer truly was Akeelah. She was likable and drew me into the movie the way many more experienced actresses would never be able to do. Lawrence Fishburne was also quite good as Dr. Larabee, a former UCLA English professor who becomes Akeelah's coach. He wasn't as dominating as Palmer, but that was in keeping with the nature of his character - Larabee being a troubled man dealing with demons of his own. Kudos also to Angela Bassett for a good performance as Akeelah's mom.Although it was not stated, I assumed this was based at least loosely on a true story, and found out afterward that it wasn't. That was a bit of a letdown, but since the movie never claimed the contrary I have nothing to complain about, although that does leave me free to mention a couple of plot points that otherwise (had they been true) would have been acceptable. The first revolved around the character of Dylan. It seemed to me that the portrayal of his family (and especially his dad) was an overly stereotypical portrayal of the Chinese family insisting on perfection from their children, whether it made their children happy or not. The other (since this never happened) is the overly happy ending to the whole thing. The ending was just too perfect - life generally isn't. Overall, though, this really was a superb movie that held me tight from the very beginning. 9/10