First the dog plays basketball. Then football. Then soccer. Then baseball with a racoon. Now we have a monkey playing hockey, a sequel where the same monkey skateboards, and according to this web site there is a third DTV movie starring the horrible primate on the way! Am I the only person on the planet who detests animal-sport movies?! I watched this on the Disney Channel when there was nothing on, and it was so predictable I was actually telling the movie what to do. Okay old man, could you like die in the next five seconds please? Ah, thanks. Could the evil coach object to a monkey playing hockey only to be reprimanded because there's no rule against monkeys playing hockey? Wow, thanks for that. Sheesh. For some reason they decided to throw in a deaf girl plot but then they throw in another Air Bud cliche by having a smart villan and a dumb sidekick looking for the monkey so they can experiment on him. Could someone write a script please?! A really odd scene is where the 'cool' girl (if there is such a thing in the 5th grade) passes out birthday party invitations to all the kids in class. The deaf girl gets all mopey. Suddenly the cool girl starts THROWING these invitations in the air and they go everywhere, and the whole thing is in slow motion. Now, later on the film says the deaf girl wasn't invited. Well, if the cool girl was just throwing them for people to pick up, it doesn't seem like they were personalized. Also, she clearly states that 'everyone' can come. So why didn't the deaf girl just grab one and show up for the party? It's not like the cool girl can turn away a wimpering deaf kid. Anyway, here are the top five ideas for the future of animal-sport flicks:
1. A giraffe plays volleyball (and can always spike it!) 2. A polar bear is adopted by a middle school dodgeball team 3. The last remaining dodo takes up archery 4. Some wacky seals try out for a Canadian water polo league 5. A one-legged cat competes in the Olympic track event
Do I sound sarcastic? Good. MVP may not suck the big donkey, but it is not anything special by any stretch of the mind. 2/4 stars.
