Like Mike Review
by Jonathan F. Richards (moviecritic AT prodigy DOT net)July 9th, 2002
IN THE DARK/Jonathan Richards
LIKE MIKE
Directed by John Shultz
PG, 95 minutes
Sports fantasy movies have a built-in appeal. The first one I remember was Rhubarb, a charmer about a cat who inherits the Brooklyn Dodgers. One of the better ones in recent years was Whoopi Goldberg’s 1996 “Eddie”, in which she comes out of the nosebleed seats to become the coach of the New York Knicks (you can see Eddie’s footprints all over “Like Mike.”) There have been plenty of movies through the years about fans who step out of the stands and dazzle the pros. The dream that begins with the PA announcer pleading “Is there anybody in the stands who can play shortstop?” is as universal among young sports fans as the actor’s nightmare (opening night and I haven’t started learning my lines!) or the one about finding yourself downtown stark naked are for their neurosis groups.
“Like Mike” mixes sports fantasy with a generous helping of “Annie” and the magic feather from “Dumbo”, and serves up a cheerfully inconsequential preteen diversion. The star around whom it’s constructed is Lil’ Bow Wow, a pint-sized rapper whose name derives from his uncle, full-sized rapper Snoop Dogg. Since making this movie Lil’ Bow Wow has turned fifteen and put away childish things, and he now wishes to be known as Bow Wow. It’s an important step toward maturity, but if he grows up to play Hamlet he may have to fine tune it again (his real name is Shad Gregory Moss).
LBW plays Calvin Cambridge, an orphan who dreams of two things: playing in the NBA, and being ‘dopted. His orphanage best buddies, assembled like a Colors of Benetton ad, are Murph (Jonathan Lipnicki) and Reg (Brenda Song). One day Calvin discovers a pair of sneakers in the orphanage hand-me-down box, and they fit! And Sister Theresa (Ann Meara) vaguely remembers that whoever dropped them off said they belonged to some NBA star when he was a kid! And they carry the initials MJ! They must’ve belonged to Michael Jordan (it doesn’t occur to him that they might be Mark Jackson’s.) They’re snatched away and tossed over a telephone wire by the orphanage bully, and before Calvin can get them back they’ve been struck by lightning. If they weren’t magic before, they are now.
Wearing the MJ sneakers, he bests Tracey Reynolds (Morris Chestnut), the L.A. Knights’ star player, at one-on-one in a halftime promotional stunt, and is signed to a contract by the team’s general manager (Eugene Levy) as a gimmick. But when the kid diagrams a play for the surprised coach (Robert Forster) in a huddle, he finds himself in the game, and from then on there’s no stopping him. He plays like Mike, although at 5”1’ he’s a lot harder to find.
This is fantasy, so it’s no use harping on logic. Like for instance, if these shoes ever did belong to Mike, it must’ve been when he was in first grade for them to fit Calvin. Would the six-year-old Jordan have dominated the NBA? Maybe not. But never mind. Calvin plays like a champ, soaring through the air to slam dunk (although we never see him let go of the rim) and leading his team from the cellar to the playoffs. Which is all very well and good, except what he really wants is a father. And it certainly isn’t going to be gruff, womanizing Tracey…is it?
Off court, Calvin leads a fairly normal life, for an orphan. The media pretty much leave him alone. When the team’s at home he lives back at the orphanage, under the opportunistic eye of its greedy director (Crispin Glover). The big change is a dramatic spike in his adoptability, and the movie falls on serious hard times when it subjects itself to the embarrassment of one of those auditioning-of-oddballs sequences as would-be parents make their pitch.
There are no surprises, but surprises aren’t part of the requirement package of its target audience, most of whose feet will dangle inches above the multiplex floor. “Like Mike” packs a surprising amount of fun and freshness into its first third or so. It delivers some genuine laughs, thanks in part to funny writing and in part to the appeal of the star and his supporting cast. Lil’ Bow Wow seems at home on the big screen, and may have a future there. The two seasoned comedians in the cast, Levy and Meara, get about as much playing time as a third round draft pick, but Forster wears like a comfortable shoe, and Chestnut gives the center of the movie some silkily sympathetic depth. As the orphanage director Glover is comically sinister, but he won’t make you forget Carol Burnett. The basketball sequences in the middle section feature some top NBA names (shot during last year’s All-Star break and co-produced by NBA Entertainment), and Calvin manages to get a few autographs during time-outs.
By the last third, though, director John Schultz has used up every cliché he can remember, and the air is coming out of the ball. At the screening I saw, even the kids seemed to be losing interest, and the roars of laughter that had livened the place up an hour earlier had grown thin and watery, like the cheers at the end of a home court blowout loss.
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
