Rating
(1 to 10) : 3
Summary: An advertisement for the NBA aimed at children and presented as a film by telling a basketball version of a commingling of "Rookie of the Year" with "Angels In the Outfield". The number of cameos of NBA players rivals "Forget Paris" but that's about its only draw. Predictable and visual puff for children.
This is another one of those "kid does better than the
adults" movies that caters to the fantasies of boys wishing to be adults.
Lil Bow Wow plays an orphan named Calvin Cambridge who lives in an orphanage
with others like him, hoping to be adopted by foster parents. One day, used
clothing are dropped off at the orphanage and among them, Calvin finds a pair
of old basketball shoes that seem like it was owned by a famous #23 in the NBA.
The shoes gets electrocuted, along with Calvin during a storm, and afterwards,
Calvin has superhuman basketball skills, from a sky-high vertical leap to a
perfect shooting stroke.
Calvin gets "discovered" when he is selected to be a halftime
contestant for a promotion for the Knights, the local NBA team. Frank Benard
(Eugene Levy, Gerry Fleck in "Best in Show") is the
marketing director of the Knights and he devises the contest as a publicity
gimmick to "...get more asses in those seats." If Calvin can
score 3 times against the Knights' best player Tracy Reynolds (Morris Chestnut,
Ricky from "Boys in the Hood"), he wins $1000. Well,
with his special shoes, Calvin does just that. Frank then gets another idea to
have Calvin be a Knights' player for one game, not to play but to be part of a
publicity stunt. Well, as you expect, the coach for the Knights puts Calvin in
the game when the Knights are behind by a large deficit and Calvin wins the
game single-handedly for the Knights. Now Calvin gets signed full-time by the
Knights and he starts living the life of a professional athlete, feted by
everyone, making large sums of money, and performing in front of hundreds of
thousands of people.
But all is not well as the head of the orphanage, Stan Bittleman (Crispin
Glover, George McFly in "Back to the Future"), connives
to use Calvin for his personal gain. He uses the fact that he's Calvin's
guardian to get money from the LA Knights. Then he tries to prevent Calvin from
being adopted, now that Calvin is a popular star, by trotting out the most
incompatible parents for Calvin, including a white couple who does musical
theater and a Rasta couple who look like they just got here from Jamaica. He
later tries to make a sure bet by betting against the Knights for an important
game and keeping Calvin's magic sneakers away from him. As you might expect,
Bittleman's plot fails, foiled by the orphan kids - this part of the movie was
a cliche of the aphorism "if it weren't for the kids, I woulda got away
with it".
You can tell what's going to happen. Calvin helps the Knights win and he gets
adopted (to give the movie some semblance of a surprise, I won't reveal who
adopts him but suffice it say that it's sort of implausible). Calvin's other
friends get adopted too and their orphanage gets more funding from the Knights.
And everybody lives happily ever after.
In summary, this movie is nothing more than a children's movie created to
advertise the NBA to kids between 6 and 13. You can tell the NBA had a direct
role in producing this film, as NBA players make cameos and NBA team logos are
displayed throughout the film. Even NBC Sport and ESPN get into the act by
doing cameos as sports newscasts. I'm sure any boy with a fantasy to play in
the NBA and make a valuable contribution now, rather than after he's grown up,
will love this film. Otherwise, it is not very entertaining.