May. 09, 2006 - 4:14 pm

Akeelah and the Bee (2006)

Jill has been a big fan of Spellbound (2002) for quite a while now. I enjoyed that movie and the few times that I've actually seen the National Spelling Bee on tv. So when I heard Ebert and Roeper's review of this film, I decided we needed to go see it.

This is a fictitious story concerning one girl's dream to win the National Spelling Bee. At the beginning of the movie, she isn't interested in spelling at all, she's just good at it. As her teachers begin to convince her that she could do well at the competition, she starts studying really hard and gets a wonderful teacher (who has some problems of his own), that finds just the right ways to teach Akeelah what she needs to know.

The movie has a good story to it and it's very entertaining. That's really about all I thought of it. It didn't change my life, or make me fall in love with any of the characters...I would leave it at "pretty good." I did enjoy the acting and thought that both Lawrence Fishburne and the girl who played Akeelah did great jobs. I was a bit put off by the mother of Akeelah. I think in general that I'm put off by Angela Bassett. She's very one-dimensional in her strong, black woman role that she always plays, and it's not a character that I really enjoy. Actually let me just say that I dislike the strong, black woman character, unless the role actually requires it (such as a character fighting racial tensions). This character would have been better without it.

Anyway, the 2006 Scripps National Spelling Bee is coming up at the end of this month. The show will be on ABC for the first time ever live on ABC from 8 to 10 p.m. EDT/CDT on June 1st. Be sure to watch!