Air Bud: Spikes Back

A piece of fluff to play as background audio visual while teenagers make out...they won't miss anything important during prolonged kissyfaces because the movie contains nothing important, just a cute dog, cute girls and a no-brainer plot. My brain enjoyed finding the factual errors, which are numerous, including how air head's team win a volleyball game while the opposite team is serving...screenwriter obviously has never played volleyball. The main character is a teenage girl but IMD for some reason list the principal "actors" as her parents, who appear only briefly at the beginning and at the end. The IMD reviewer might be related to the screenwriter, neither seem to have a clue what they are writing about...

Andrea and Tammy are best friends. But now that school is out for the summer, Tammy is moving from Fernfield to San Diego, and both girls are SOOOO sad. Andrea vows to earn enough money for a plane ticket to see her best friend.

A large diamond is being delivered to the Fernfield museum to be put on display. The plumbers who are there to fix the toilet are not plumbers, and I doubt seriously that these morons could fix anything. They are there to steal the diamond. One problem: the diamond is guarded by laser beams worthy of "Mission: Impossible". There is a heating vent that leads right to the diamond, but it's too small for them. Maybe they could get a child to steal the diamond. Or a dog. When they see Buddy perform in a canine obstacle course competition, they know what they have to do. They have to kidnap Buddy!

Andrea figures out how to earn money. Her father is a vet and she is so good with the animals at his office. She can be a pet sitter. Of course, that's harder than it looks.

Another possibility: Connor moves into Tammy's old house. He used to play beach volleyball, and, yes, Fernfield has a league, but the team is not very good. For one thing, the coach is so dumb he makes the jewel thieves look like they could pull off The Italian Job. (Okay, I was exaggerating. No one could make those guys look smart.) If by some miracle (Buddy, perhaps?) the team wins the league championship, they get a trip to see Gabrielle Reece and other professionals in California. So Andrea joins the team along with Connor.

Andrea's parents go to a convention, and Grandma is left in charge along with her annoying parrot and lack of ability in the kitchen.

This movie had nothing that would make it inappropriate for children, which is a good thing because only children would watch it. Or perhaps adult Lizzie McGuire fans. Of which I am one. Andrea is almost as adorable as Lizzie (and she gets it from her mom). Her annoying little brother Noah is no Matt, but he seems like a real kid rather than a Hollywood version. Connor is not exactly Gordo, who had brains rather than athletic ability, but maybe he'll appeal to teenage girls.

I don't like dogs but how could anyone not like Buddy? The canine actor (actors?) is so talented in so many ways. But there was one unbelievable scene which would have been easy enough for an accomplished trainer, but come on! Dumb and Dumber could NOT have done that.

Pat Cranshaw was still going strong when this was made, which is hard to believe since he was ancient 20 years ago. He still had the same charm. And there was another sequel! I found this out looking to see when he died. Apparently it was his last movie.

The bumbling idiot jewel thieves are quite funny. And then there is the one man who stood between them and the diamond, the fat and lazy but friendly security guard Phil (hence the need for lasers).

There is plenty of comedy here, physical and otherwise, and several enjoyable but implausible plot lines.

It's a fun movie if you aren't looking for quality.

The Disney company is a corporation, so we have no reason to expect them to keep from doing something that they shouldn't do if money is involved. Air Bud is a perfect example of how much money can be made off of sequels to incredibly stupid movie. I hate to brake it to you people, but the original Air Bud was not a good movie! Wow, what a revelation!!! But the fact that an Air Bud 5 even exists should be enough reason for God or Budha or Captain Crunch to come down upon the human race with fire and brimstone and giant, fire-breathing waterfowl that will kill whoever is responsible for destroying the imaginations and intellect of the children who watch these effortless films because their parents sit them down in front of the TV for ninety minutes so that they can have their "special time" to create more worthless children to cover our forsaken earth until were overrun with hopeless, sagging drones who vote for George Bush and watch reality television! phew... You already know the plot of this movie. Your children already know the plot of this movie. If they're going to watch something, have them watch a Disney classic, please, I really do fear for their future... (p.s. Not all those who vote for George Bush are idiots, but most are)

By the fifth film in the Air Bud series you'd think the well of sports might run dry, but Air Bud: Spikes Back cheerfully proves there's still one more court for Buddy to conquer: beach volleyball. Released direct-to-video in 2003 and directed by Mike Southon, the movie shifts the focus from longtime human lead Josh to his younger sister Andrea Framm (Katija Pevec), and then wraps her "I miss my best friend" coming-of-age story around the franchise's two reliable engines: Buddy discovering a brand-new athletic superpower and a pair of bumbling crooks trying to exploit him. It's gentle, formula-driven, and unmistakably early-2000s Disney-adjacent, but there's enough sincerity in Andrea's plot and enough goofy energy in the dog-napping subplot that younger viewers will get exactly what they came for.

The plot is split cleanly in two. On the personal side, Andrea is down after her best friend Tammy moves to California; when Andrea realizes the prize for the local volleyball league is a trip to California, she joins her neighbor Connor's team and ropes Buddy into playing, because of course he can set and spike. On the crime-capers side, two small-time crooks, Doug and Gordon, posing as plumbers, hatch a plan to steal a valuable diamond from the town museum-only they need a nimble dog to help them, so Buddy becomes their target. While Andrea trains and the team climbs toward the championship, the crooks get closer, eventually dognapping Buddy so they can use his athletic paws in the heist. A talking parrot, a sheriff, and Andrea's extended family all get pulled into the rescue, and the movie times Buddy's return to line up with the all-important match. It's very much "sports movie plus Scooby-Doo-lite caper," and it moves fast enough that kids are never far from either volleyball or pet-rescue antics.

Andrea is a sensible choice for the main human this time. Katija Pevec plays her as earnest and slightly lonely, a kid who isn't rebelling so much as trying to keep her life from shrinking after a friend leaves. Joining a team, caring for Buddy, even pet-sitting to save money all track with what a girl her age would do, and because this is the Framm house we've seen in earlier films, the family warmth around her-mom Jackie (Cynthia Stevenson), stepdad Patrick, little brother Noah, and Gram Gram-keeps the tone light and familiar. Connor (Tyler Boissonnault) is there to provide a hint of tween crush and to pull her into the team, but he never overshadows Andrea. Buddy, of course, is the franchise star; his volleyball competence is stitched in with the same straight face as his previous talents, so the film never winks at itself, which is part of what makes these movies work for kids. On the villain side, Doug and Gordon are deliberately broad: they bicker, they underestimate the dog, they fumble the museum job. Their silliness keeps the dognapping from getting too scary, and it gives the movie a convenient set of "bad guys" for Buddy to outsmart.

The themes are simple but tidy. First is coping with change: Andrea's whole motivation-win the trip to California so she can see Tammy-comes from loss. The film tells young viewers that it's okay to be sad when people move away, but also that joining something new (a team) and leaning on family and pets can help. Second is community through play. Once Buddy is on the team, the volleyball league matters to everyone; it's classic Air Bud "small town rallies around improbable dog" energy. Third, continuing from earlier entries, is kindness versus exploitation. Andrea and her family treat Buddy like family; the crooks see him as a tool to steal a diamond. That moral line-love animals, don't use them-is drawn clearly for kids. There's even a light responsibility thread: with Josh away at college, Andrea is effectively Buddy's person now, and when he's taken, she steps up to get him back. None of this is subtle, but children's films rarely need to be.

Cinematography is where the movie has a tiny spark of personality. Because volleyball is an open-court sport, Southon (who also handled cinematography on earlier Air Bud projects) keeps the camera fairly wide so we can watch Buddy actually track and hit the ball-crucial for selling the illusion. When Buddy jumps or digs, the shot often stays on him a beat longer than it would on a human player, just to "prove" the gag is real. The beach or outdoor settings are shot in bright, even daylight, making everything look summery and safe, and indoor family scenes are warm and uncluttered, keeping the focus on faces and pets. During the museum-heist bits, the lighting tightens and colors cool slightly, so kids can tell "we're in sneaky mode now," but it never goes dark enough to be threatening. It's not ambitious cinema, but it's purposeful: the camera's job is to let kids see the dog win points and escape bad guys, and it does.

When you weigh strengths and weaknesses, Air Bud: Spikes Back lands where many late-series family sequels land. On the plus side, it delivers the promise on the box art-Buddy really does play volleyball, and he does it in multiple matches, not just a single novelty scene. It refreshes the human lead by putting Andrea front and center, which keeps the franchise from being stuck in Josh's childhood forever. It maintains the gentle, supportive family tone fans expect, so parents can put it on without worrying about sudden meanness. And it adds kid-friendly jeopardy (the dognapping, the diamond) to break up the sports beats, which helps pacing for younger viewers. On the minus side, the film is extremely predictable-every story turn has appeared in earlier Air Bud movies, only with a different sport. The villains, while funny, are pure cartoon and never feel like real threats, which lowers the stakes. Because the movie has to juggle Andrea's emotional goal, the team's volleyball goal, and the crooks' diamond goal, none of them get deep exploration; Andrea's sadness about Tammy resolves via tournament win rather than an actual emotional conversation. And visually, it's serviceable but flat-you won't remember individual shots the way you might remember, say, the soaring basketball moment from the 1997 original. Some reviewers have even noted that by this fifth film, the novelty of "dog plays sport" has worn thin, which is fair.

Conclusion Air Bud: Spikes Back isn't trying to reinvent family entertainment, and it doesn't. What it does is preserve the exact mix that made the earlier films Saturday-afternoon staples: an earnest kid with a relatable problem, a golden retriever who can inexplicably master any sport, a town ready to cheer, and villains silly enough that you never worry for real. If you come to it after four previous Buddy adventures, you'll spot the seams and feel the formula; if you come to it as a younger viewer who just wants to see a good dog win a volleyball tournament and outwit some dognappers, it does the job. And if the series really does circle back with Air Bud: Return in 2026, this film shows the blueprint is still there: keep Buddy at the heart, give a kid a problem that kindness can fix, plug in a new sport, and let the crowd go wild.

This is truly one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Compared to the other "Air Bud" movies in this series, this one really makes you think, who wrote it? Plus you know that none of the these movies would ever happen in a million years. I know that the marketers and producers aim for it to be a "fun family film", and for kids to enjoy it, but I was a kid when I first watched these movies and I have to say that I wasn't amused, and I'm pretty sure that not many of the other kids that saw it were either. I have to admit though when I heard that they were coming out with one that had volleyball as the premise, I was curious to see it, being a volleyball player myself. Though I regret that I did because it was such a stupid film. The acting was mediocre, the plot and ending were so obvious, and not to mention every time Bud is playing any of the sports, it looks so fake. I don't know how someone could really pitch this story to a producer or company, because the plot is exactly the same as the other "Air Bud" movies, except there is a different location, and a different sport. I really suggest not renting this video.