Akeelah
and the Bee isn’t the kind of movie I like to criticize. It is, after all,
well intentioned but ultimately, I didn’t buy into it. Regardless of it’s
sweetness and it’s earnest attempt at being the quintessential family film,
it really isn’t a very good movie. Why? I’ll get to that in a moment.
Taking
a cue from the infinitely more entertaining (and dramatic) documentary Spellbound,
Akeelah and the Bee tells the story of Akeelah, a twelve year old spelling protégé
who spends most of her time struggling to fit in at her Crenshaw middle school.
Eventually, she sees a spelling bee on ESPN and realizes that such competitions
might be her ticket. After winning a local bee, she is encouraged by her school
principal to push her talent further. Sadly, Akeelah’s mom isn’t entirely
sold on this notion, granted she’s a overworked single mother spending most
of her extra time making sure her teenage son steers clear of gang culture. Akeelah
soon finds aid in the form of Joshua Larabee (hey–Akeelah and the Lara-Bee),
a one time college professor and spelling bee champ who has since been humbled
by that harsh thing called life.
Where
to begin? Akeelah and the Bee is plagued by fake sentiment. It often pulls at
the heartstrings so hard that I found myself with a bad case of heart burn. And
those who’ve ever experienced heart burn know, it doesn’t feel very
good.
Young Keke
Palmer does an admirable job here expressing attitude, tenacity, and emotion,
and had she been given a stronger screenplay, this could have been huge for her.
As it stands, her performance is hindered because of weak writing and direction.
Lawrence Fishburne is all too quiet as the lonely Dr. Larabee. His internal pain
is evident because the screenplay dictates it, but I never truly felt it. Angela
Bassett is spunky as an assertive mother doing the best she can with what she
has. Having said that, Fishburne and Basset fared much better as co-stars in Boyz
in the Hood and What’s Love Got to Do With It, because those films were fueled
by real drama, instead of paint-by-numbers sentiment.
Of
the entire cast, I enjoyed young George Hornedo best. He plays Akeelah’s
new bee buddy Roman. This energetic actor has some wonderful, genuine moments
with Palmer’s Akeelah, and he’s able to lend the film truly inspired
humor.
As a spelling
bee drama this picture bares a striking resemblance to another Lawrence Fishburne
film, the vastly superior Searching For Bobby Fisher. Both movies feature child
protégés with an amazing gift for their craft (in “Bobby Fisher”
it was chess), and both movies feature young protagonists out to make their parents
proud. Sadly though, Akeelah and the Bee ditches the subtle nuances that made
Searching For Bobby Fisher so effective, and trades them in for numerous clichés
that, on more than one occasion, had the Boneman giggling aloud.
The
common bond that Akeelah and Larabee share in this film is extremely heavy handed
and before everyone paints me a cynic, know that I am extremely susceptible to
such business when handled in a less obvious fashion. For instance, I’m an
unabashed fan of the Sean Astin film Rudy. That movie features a bond of sorts
between Daniel Ruettiger and his grizzled boss Fortune (played by Charles S. Dutton),
but the film makers kept this stuff in check in Rudy. In Akeelah and the Bee,
the proceedings are far too manipulative making for cheesy and contrived melodrama.
In
fact, most of Akeelah and the Bee’s numerous shortcomings lie in the mechanical
screenplay. Structurally, the picture is all over the map. It doesn’t know
when to quit. At one point, Akeelah becomes a local celebrity. We’re talking
big time. Autograph signings, television appearances etc. I can buy into the TV
interviews, but autograph signings? It’s a bit ridiculous. As for the dialogue,
most of it feels like dialogue. This is to say that much of the time, when characters
are speaking in this film, the conversations don’t really flow. Again, it’s
all too mechanical. Granted it should be duly noted that Fishburne and Palmer
have a few inspired bits of word play, and I’m willing to bet that these
particular moments were improvised.
Writer
Doug Atchison also serves as director, and his instincts as a film maker don’t
serve him too well. In addition to being heavy handed, the movie also features
some stereotypical moments that are down right offensive. Watch as an angry Asian
man criticizes his son for nearly letting a young black girl beat him in a game
of Scrabble. This sort of thing might be funny on an episode of King of the Hill
(Kahn pulls such business on the Mike Judge show all the time), but in Akeelah
and the Bee, it makes the proceedings all the more ridiculous. It’s quite
simply a one dimensional (and cliched) scenario, something that Paul Haggis took
extra pride in avoiding in his stellar Crash.
As
for the spelling bee sequences themselves, they’re pretty good, although
they don’t quite lend that sense of tension that you might expect, save for
the climactic bee battle between Akeelah and her spelling wiz adversary. The movie
takes the safe route where the climax is concerned, but it does so in a way I
wasn’t really expecting. I suppose one unpredictable moment is better than
no unpredictable moment.
In
the end, Akeelah and the Bee is a feel good family film that tries far too hard
to be a feel good family film. I liken the experience to watching a flick like
Patch Adams, although, thankfully, this movie doesn’t sink that deep. Unlike
pictures such as the previously mentioned Searching For Bobby Fisher, Akeelah
and the Bee tries so hard to warm the heart that it loses it’s sense of realism.
What’s left is a cliché buffet with a few effective moments and a
cast that is capable of much, much more. Spell mediocre-M.e.d.i.o.c.r.e.
