Director
Marcos Siega
Cast
Nick Cannon….Tracy ‘Tre’ Stokes
Roselyn Sanchez….Karen Lopez
Shawn Ashmore….Rob Donovan
Angelo Spizzirri….David Boscoe
Hugh Bonneville….Headmaster Felix Powers
Cheech Marin….Captain Victor Delgado
The Movie
Sometimes when you get your first big role in a movie, anything will suffice. Sometimes that’s a bad idea. Underclassman is a bad, bad idea for Nick Cannon.
Tracy Stokes is a bike cop for the LAPD who aspires to be the detective that his father once was. The only problem is that he is unorthodox and doesn’t go by the rule book, which we see in the first few minutes of the film. It seems that whatever he does he messes up, which makes his Captain, Cheech Marin as Victor Delgado, none too happy. Delgado is also the man that Tre’s father put in charge of helping him out before he passed away.
Delgado wants Tre to take his time and go by the rules to advance within the department. At the same time, Tre wants to get his guns blazing right away. When a student at an elite private school gets killed, the department needs someone to go undercover. Since Tre is the only person that looks like he is 16, Delgado begrudgingly sends him in. From there on it’s hijinks as Tre hits on the spanish teacher, shoots some hoops and does his best to investigate. The only question is whether or not Tre will grow up in time to solve the murder, or will his penchant for destruction get in his way.
Ok, this movie is not a masterpiece. I’m pretty sure that Nick Cannon could have done something better. He is extremely talented, especially in improv. This is just the wrong role for him. If they had sent this movie to college, they could’ve used Chris Tucker. With that said, he does his best with the material given to him. Roselyn Sanchez does her best in a very minor role and she’s hot too. Cheech Marin is funny as usual and the rest of the cast does a noble job. The problem is in the pudding, i.e. the script.
Some glaring weakspots and pretty much a childrens movie with attitude, so there is nobody to sell it to.
Score: 3/10
The Video
Widescreen 2.35:1 – Enhanced for 16X9 Televisions: That doesn’t really make sense to me, but the film looked good.
The Audio
5.1 Dolby Digital SS or 2.0 SS: Sounds good
The Extras
Deleted Scenes: Nothing special
The Making of Underclassman: Basically a feature about how everything was built around Cannon and what he wanted/could do.
Cast Auditions: Surprisingly not fun at all.
There was nothing special about the special features.
Score: 2/10
