AKEELAH AND THE BEE

It seems as though Starbucks has been wanting to get into other parts of our lives outside of coffee and music, and now they have. Along with 2929 Entertainment (the studio that brought us a film no other studio wanted...Good Night and Good Luck), they've dipped their toe into the world of movies and when you see this film it's easy to see why this one worked for them. It's completely family safe fare and has a positive message not only for kids of color, but kids of any color. Akeelah and the Bee's executive producer Todd Wagner claims that Akeelah is the first studio film in history to feature a female African-American child actor as its lead character...I think he might be right. Outside of the precedents being set with this film, it is more importantly entertaining and very well done. Sure, there's a formula in place that will bring to mind many sports films or films with any sort of competition at its core, but the one that rang the truest for me was The Karate Kid. Keke Palmer (who is excellent) plays the Ralph Macchio role and Laurence Fishburne is her Mr. Miyagi. Now she might not be kicking butt in the literal sense, but she is battling the pressure in her school to "keep it real"; and more appropriately as Chris Rock says, to "Keep it real dumb." The pressure on children of color to do poorly in school is one of the most ridiculous things that our culture has to offer, and one of the reasons we do so poorly as a nation in educating our kids. Parents don't want their children to be uneducated, it's other kids that cause the gap between the educated and the under-educated. Akeelah eventually stands up to these pressures and to her mother (Angela Bassett) who sees the bees as the reason for Akeelah's sliding grades. It's a story of triumph under difficult circumstances...the flower blossoming through a crack in the concrete. There are wonderful performances from all of the leads; Palmer, Bassett, and Fishburne carry the film easily. There's a standout supporting performance from J.R. Villarreal which highlights the writing of Doug Atchison who also directed the film. It took Atchison many years to get Akeelah to the screen and hopefully audiences will make that wait pay off. This is the type of film that deserves an audience and the monetary rewards that go with it. Check it out in the theater!
- veg