DVD available at Amazon.com
Writer-Director:
Doug Atchison
Cast:
Keke Palmer……….Akeelah Anderson
Angela Bassett……….Tanya Anderson
Laurence Fishburne……….Dr. Joshua Larabee
J.R. Villarreal……….Javier
Sean Michael Afable……….Dylan
Sahara Garey……….Georgia
Curtis Armstrong………Mr. Welch
Erica Hubbard……….Kiana Anderson
Lee Thompson Young……….Devon Anderson
Lionsgate presents Akeelah and the Bee. Running time: 112 minutes. Rated PG (for some language). DVD release date: August 29, 2006. MSRP: $29.98.
Akeelah Anderson is a shrinking violet. Her gift of spelling ten-dollar words – and words you wouldn’t normally hear walking down the streets of South Central – has put her in the position of being labeled a “braniac” by her Crenshaw Middle School classmates. Despite her best efforts to remain anonymous and keep her smarts to herself, 11-year-old Akeelah is thrust into a situation where her brilliance is personified on a national level.
Wariness cascades over her face, even though memorization and spelling isn’t the problem. It’s peer pressure. At the behest of the school’s principal, Akeelah (Keke Palmer) is urged to participate in the citywide spelling bee. Her ascent through the ranks of much more educated spellers is nothing short of miraculous.
And that is why it is remarkable. Her hard work and determination on the way to the National Spelling Bee makes for an enjoyable, if not inspirational movie. But Akeelah’s chance at success only comes after a disinclined English professor agrees to act as her coach. Daniel LaRusso has Mr. Miyagi. Rocky Balboa has Mickey Goldmill. Akeelah Anderson has Dr. Joshua Larabee (Laurence Fishburne).
Dr. Larabee is an astute judge of character, having sized Akeelah up by throwing her words like “pterodactyl” and “prestidigitation” after she won the city bee. This abrupt spelling challenge is a test to see if she has what it takes to win on a larger stage. With each passing study session, Larabee is no-nonsense in his demeanor. He prefers Akeelah not use her South-Central rhetoric, instead preferring her to speak like an adult. Eventually, the time spent with the 11-year-old wunderkind acts as a means to escape the closed-knit shell he’s been living in ever since his daughter passed away.
But Dr. Larabee isn’t the only one dealing with loss. Growing up in Crenshaw, Akeelah spends nights reading, reciting and spelling words to drown out the sounds of helicopters and police sirens. She stares at a framed photograph on the bookshelf above her desk. The photo is a constant reminder of what is missing in her life. Her dad.
Parents should have a prominent role in their child’s development. This means cheering them on when they need encouragement. The alienation Akeelah suffers at school is also a feeling she gets at home. Her mother (Angela Bassett) is not enthusiastic about her daughter winning a spelling bee. She would rather Akeelah not skip class and complete her homework assignments on time; worrying about a spelling bee is silly. For Akeelah to follow her dream she must practice in secret.
And so begins this little girl’s journey. The story has Akeelah gaining notoriety as a Crenshaw middle-schooler, and while she does not like her school, she does not look down at her neighborhood with depressed eyes. How she responds to her mother’s skepticism is tantamount to her relationship with the professor, and friendships made through competition. One friend is a Mexican-American named Javier (J.R. Villarreal). The son of a noteworthy journalist, Javier attends the upscale Woodland Hills School with fellow speller Dylan (Sean Michael Afable), an Asian American who has finished second in Nationals the last two years. Dylan has a robotic quality about him, driven by an obsessive father who won’t stop pushing him until he’s number one. Javier is a bit of a jokester. While smart, he doesn’t allow the competitions to be a pressing concern.
The training Akeelah endures from Dr. Larabee is almost characteristic of the Daniel LaRusso-Mr. Miyagi relationship in The Karate Kid. Each session is a strategy. Painting a fence acts as a blocking exercise for Daniel-san, while small words acts as an enabler to understand larger, more complex words for Akeelah.
Akeelah and the Bee is winning film even if it is the latest to show triumphing over adversity on the spelling bee stage. (The documentary Spellbound and last year’s Bee Season are the others.) It is clichéd to a degree, but the flaws don’t prevent it from being a quality film. Doug Atchison, who was inspired to write this story upon having tutored children in downtown Los Angeles, tugs the heartstrings a bit much. Whereas Rocky had a training montage – Balboa punching frozen chunks of meat, for example – Akeelah has no less than three montages where the main character is learning how to spell words, one of which has Akeelah getting help from the community.
Yet Keke Palmer’s performance, and the acting reunion of Laurence Fishburne and Angela Bassett (last seen together in What’s Love Got to do With It), compensates for the schmaltziness. Having worked with established actors like William H. Macy, and now Fishburne and Bassett, Palmer shows why her star is rising. As Akeelah, Palmer plays the role like that of a middle-schooler. Maybe because she is one. But her performance is natural. While words are prevalent throughout, it is the shots where she isn’t speaking that we get a greater sense of her character.
THE VIDEO
(Presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen)
Very good transfer from Lionsgate. Though not a visual marvel, the picture looks sharp and crisp. With an overabundance of white, whether it be polo shirts or the peeled-paint on walls, it would be easy to pinpoint any defects. Thankfully, there is no discernable dirt or problems with the image.
THE AUDIO
(English – 5.1 and 2.0 Dolby Digital)
If you haven’t guessed by now, Akeelah and the Bee is heavy on dialogue. Even still, the 5.1 Dolby track sufficiently handles all monologues and spelling words. The track makes good use of sound separation in scenes involving audience participation, like congratulatory applause at a spelling competition.
SPECIAL FEATURES
Considering how inspiring this film is, with an attention to sportsmanship, it’s unfortunate that the extras are lacking.
The most impressive feature is the 22-minute The Making of Akeelah and the Bee. Even though some of what is said is pure fluff, the viewer gets a greater appreciation of how close this project was for writer-director Doug Atchison. Atchison is one of the heavies as far as interview subjects go, but the film’s producers also contribute. They talk about the importance of underdog stories, movies like Rudy and The Rookie. Lionsgate was insistent that Keke Palmer gets the role of Akeelah. They were so steadfast about the casting decision that they would not front most of the money for the project.
The other featurettes are smaller, and don’t fare as well. Keke & Doug: Two Peas in a Pod and Inside the Mind of Akeelah are extras geared towards a smaller audience. Together, both run about 11 minutes. The first shows the relationship between the actress and her director. The other shows the emotional range of the character, whether it is fear and despair, or joy and affection. The two mini-docs also incorporate footage seen from the making-of, thus hampering them. Though, there isn’t much in the way of insight to be gained from watching these featurettes.
The seven deleted scenes contained on the DVD are pretty unremarkable. Most are extensions to scenes already in the film, or alternate takes. The best is quick one-liner by Javier telling Akeelah that Dylan is an ass monkey.
More forgettable stuff follows with the music video “All My Girlz” by Palmer, a gag reel and trailers for Durango Kids, Arthur’s Missing Pal and Madea’s Family Reunion.
THE INSIDE PULSE
Akeelah and the Bee has its fair share of detractors who cite the clichéd underdog story and stale character personalities as the biggest complaints. But while the story is clichéd, the characters shouldn’t be. Writer-director Doug Atchison writes from experience, having tutored many kids at a youth center in L.A., and being a spelling bee contestant. Another complement to Atchison’s script is the story arcs. Many of them could be stand-alones. Like the struggles Akeelah’s mother faces as a widow raising three children. Keke Palmer joins Dakota Fanning as a child star who will be in high demand in Hollywood, with her performance. She, like Fanning, elevates the talent they have around them. The DVD leaves less to be desired, but the movie itself is worth watching.
