This drama is coming off of a long string of films that speak to its content, style, story, agegroup, everything. There's no argueing that all the Spelling Bee spin-offs, including Bee Season (I know, older book, but the film wasn't done until Spellbound popularity upped the ante) Putnam County Spelling Bee (Live Broadway Show) and now Akeelah and the Bee. That's not to mention that Mad Hot Ballroom had a different activity, but alot of the similar themes, and all of the above have focussed on middle-school aged children and their families and envirnment.

With the first reviews in at RT, 5 like it, and one says Akeelah is just riding the Spellbound wave.

Its going to be interesting to see if this movie does something "new" or not, since for the life of me I can't come up with an angle, style, or narrator's voice that hasn't been covered.

Honestly? No.

At this point, any subject it goes after will be cliched. The genius girl is discovered by the spelling coach (who no doubt was denied a chance to compete as a child for some cliched reason), but must fight class differences and an urban environment to succeed.

...

Any compelling drama that might have come from this sort of story has already been exhausted. As nice as reviews might be, I'm not interested at all.

I'm definately interested in it, I'm always a sucker for the "underdog rises above" especially when its a child. I really don't think there is anything new the film can explore and I'm expecting it to be able to tug all the right heartstrings to try to illicit an emotional response from the viewer.

It could be good, but I'm not holding my breath.

I saw the sneak preview last night and, while it's incredibly predictable, it's a great and moving film with fantastic performances.

Well, just got back from seeing it. What an ordeal this evening. Ask bABA all about it. :-) I'll have my review up as soon as possible.

edit** Its up: http://www.worldofkj.com/reviews/Galia/ ... theBee.php

It was very predictable. But still, I enjoyed it. I rarely call movies "sweet" in a complimentary way (usually I refer to them as saccharine, which is totally different) but Akeelah was cute, enjoyable, and pretty good for younger kids too. Last movie I saw like that was Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (which I did like more than Akeelah).

I'm going to be catching it sometime this weekend Dolce. I have a soft spot for this type of "sweet" film so we shall see.

I enjoyed it. Only picking point I had was the depiction of the Korean father and the "model citizen" stereotype. Seems off in a movie where everyone else was pretty holistic and colourful. Though Dylan ends up being less flat than he appears throughout the movie (you'll see). His father is just really one-dimensional.

I'm a sucker for inspirational stories like Akeelah and the Bee, and though overall it worked it's magic on me - I just couldn't get over the crazily unrealistic character development lines. Every single character went from super pessimistic ultra villains to over-the-top mega supporters. Yow! They could have told this story just as inspirationally withoput resorting to this sort of secondary character defamation/deformation. For example, the school bullies went from physical abuse to cheerleaders, the South Central gang leader promised to read his grade five poem (a promise which I must report he didn't keep), and worse her mother wasn't the least supportive at the beginning - of all the characters, she would have benefitted from coming from a less extreme starting point.

But, despite this major flaw of lazy writing, the darn movie still chugs on through to it's obviously inspirational conclusion, and had me by the heart strings.

3 out of 5.

(Overall, in response to this thread's title, I'm not surprised where it went...)