Akeelah and the Bee - Review

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Length: 1122 min

Rated: PG

Distributor: Lionsgate

Release Date: 2006-04-28

Starring: Keke Palmer, Angela Bassett, Laurence Fishburne, Curtis Armstrong, J.R. Villarreal, Sean Michael, Lee Thompson Young, Eddie Steeples

Directed by Doug Atchison

Produced by Sid Ganis, Nancy Ganis, Michael Romersa, Daniel Llewelyn, Laurence Fishburne

Written by Doug Atchison

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Reviewed by Rafe Telsch : 2006-04-24 22:44:41

Akeelah and the Bee is one of those rare movies that comes along every once in a while and manages to get everything right despite sticking to an almost formulaic plot design. In this case, Akeelah is almost a sports movie, with the titular heroine involved in a spelling competition instead of any sort of sport with a ball. Make no mistake about it though, anyone who has seen the spelling championship on ESPN knows how brutal the competition can be. As a competition movie, Akeelah puts the mass of children’s sports movies to shame though, as the film proves it’s not the winning at the end of the film, but the journey there that makes us who we are.

There’s nothing really special about Akeelah. She’s just an eleven year old girl who happens to be good at spelling. That doesn’t do her much good in school though, especially since she’s fond of skipping classes and missing homework. Akeelah is one of those kids whose content to simply get by, especially if it means avoiding showing people that she’s actually smart. As one of her school’s brightest students, and as punishment for missing classes, Akeelah is dropped into the school’s first spelling bee, and quickly finds herself on a path that leads to the national competition.

Of course, as with any competitive type movie, the star has to have obstacles to overcome. In Akeelah’s case it’s her home life. Her mother is a nurse who doesn’t have much time to spend keeping tabs on her kids. Since one of Akeelah’s brothers is starting to get under the wrong influence, that leaves even less time for her mom to pay attention to Akeelah. In some ways, the spelling bee becomes a chance to get Akeelah’s mother to pay attention to her, but as overworked as mom is, there’s just no time for spelling.

Instead the attention for Akeelah comes from her spelling coach, Dr. Larabee, an almost-Mr. Miyagi type figure who has withdrawn from his world of collegiate teaching after a family trauma. That doesn’t stop him from not only helping Akeelah learn how to spell, but also trying to teach her about her culture and help her find a way to accept her intelligence instead of hiding it. Their relationship quickly becomes strong, as he becomes the father figure Akeelah is lacking, and she becomes the daughter Larabee is missing.

With emotional gaps being filled and a competition to spur things along, Akeelah and the Bee will no doubt be lumped in with all those other “feel good” movies out there. But Akeelah manages more than some cheap emotional manipulations. There is some real substance to the emotion within the film. This is less of a credit to seasoned veterans Laurence Fishburne and Angela Bassett though, who are content to sit back and play supporting roles to the true talent of the movie: thirteen year old Keke Palmer. Palmer plays the title role with an innocence and passion that can’t be mugged or faked – this is the real deal, and it’s this movie that shows why junk like ATL or poor moppet Dakota Fanning performances shouldn’t be tolerated. The movie demands a wide range of emotions and responses from Palmer, and she grabs the audience from frame one and takes them on a fantastic ride.

Sure Akeelah is a “feel good movie”, but there’s nothing wrong with that. We need to feel good every once in a while, and I’d rather have a genuinely good story like this make me feel good over some contrived star vehicle movie any day. Writer/director Doug Atchison puts his sappy and somewhat predictable script on Palmer’s shoulders, and the result is phenomenal.

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ogyefuor
October 1, 2007 at 19:27

well i think this movie is one of the best we have ever seen in the world akeelah and the bee, she can be one day best actress in the world i love the film

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anonymous
September 27, 2007 at 13:15

It's a very educational movie. Although it's predictable, it has also some little thrills that make the story so pleasurable. The movie is 4 family entertainment.

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jack
May 3, 2006 at 08:49

Now I don't think little Dakota Fanning is all that, but to completely dismiss her is a bit silly. The girl definitely has talent, and will most likely grow up to be an award winning actress. Maybe when little Keke Palmer has done more than "Akeelah and the Bee" and of course her monumentous role as "Gina's Niece" in "Barbershop 2: Back in Business", then you can do another review about what a revelation she is.

P.S. If the film is formulaic to a "T", it's silly to give it 4 stars out of 5. Predictability should automatically deduct at least 1 point from a film, leaving this one with 3 (as your original score was 4 out of 5 not counting my automatic 1-point deducation). How exactly do you justify giving such a high score to a movie that you yourself admit to be predictable from beginning to end? At most it's a 3-star film.

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Rafe
April 28, 2006 at 09:40

Let's see...

Hide and Seek
War of the Worlds
Man on Fire
Uptown Girls

All horrible movies.

Just because Dakota has managed to act alongside some big names does not make her a great actress. She does the same thing over and over again, and it all comes across as precocious and fake. The performance in Akeelah by Keke Palmer comes across as a hell of a lot more authentic than anything I've seen Fanning do in any of the movies, SAG nominee or not.

Oh, and the SAG nomination doesn't carry much weight with me anyway. First of all, awards are typically more about popularity than actual talent. Secondly, she was nominated when she was 8 years old, so I would attribute more of her performance to Nelson's direction. Thirdly, she didn't win. ;)

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Adam Cunningham
April 26, 2006 at 13:25

Hm, you think little Dakota Fanning's performances are junk huh?
I guess when she was the youngest person ever nominated for a SAG Award for her first major feature film role that was just lucky no? I suppose the fact that she has been picked to act alongside Tom Cruise, Robert De Niro, Sean Penn, Denzel Washington and Kurt Russell and no longer has to audition anymore becuse it "would be considered an insult" to quote the director of Hide and Seek does not matter, hey what are the opinions of Steven Spielberg and Denzel Washington compared to you huh. You sort of discredit anything you say by coming up with a stupid and unfounded statement like that.

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