Rebound (2005)

REBOUND

2005 - USA

Director: Steve Carr
Starring: Martin Lawrence, Wendy Raquel Robinson, Breckin Meyer, Horatio Sanz, Oren Williams, Patrick Warburton, Megan Mullally, Eddy Martin, Steven C. Parker

- Reviewed by Vickie

Rebound Okay, I know that my official ‘Pie profile states that I love the entire Martin Lawrence oeuvre, but there are exceptions and this deflated comedy is one of them.

Lawrence stars as hot-headed college basketball coach Roy McCormick, whose on-court antics are matched only by his massive ego and lucrative endorsement deals. When some particularly bad behavior gets him bounced from the NCAB, his smarmy agent (Breckin Meyer) suggests he take a coaching job offered him by the misfit young players at his former middle school. What follows is a formulaic, uninspired and remarkably unfunny underdog story, as a reluctant Roy takes the hoop-shooting geek squad from zeros to…you get the idea. It will come as a surprise to absolutely no one that, in the process, Coach Roy gets a few lessons in humility, teamwork and sportsmanship, while folks like Megan Mullally and Patrick Warburton go slumming in supporting roles.

Clearly following in the career footsteps of Eddie Murphy, Lawrence is trying his hand at a family-friendly comedy (see: Murphy’s Dr. Doolittle and Daddy Day-Care), only it doesn’t work. Partly because Lawrence isn’t wholly convincing once his character gets all fatherly, and partly because his young co-stars aren’t really cute or cuddly—they’re clichéd and highly annoying. I’d love to see the casting sides they sent out for this movie…”Wanted: awkward, ungainly, nerdish 11- to 14-year old boys who overact and underperform.” Sure, all the characters have “quirky” names like Goggles and (gag) One Love, and they’re each slotted into archetypal roles (the fat kid! the nervous kid! the math geek! the “secret weapon”!), but so what? They’re not particularly likable, save for behemoth band geek Wes (Steven C. Parker) and ball-busting tough gal Big Mac (Tara Correa), whose tenuous romance was actually kind of cute (but entirely predictable!).

Having said all that, it seems that Rebound will appeal to its target audience. Judging by the peals of laughter coming from the dozen or so kids in the audience at the otherwise very sparsely attended screening, there are enough groin-injury jokes, bodily fluid jokes, basketballs hitting people in the face jokes and generally juvenile humor (which I do enjoy, you know!) to keep the under-12 set thoroughly entertained.

Me, though? Not so much.

Official Movie Site

Agree? Disagree? Go to the Forum! | Back to Video/DVD