>>REVIEW
SUPERCROSS
STARRING Steve Howey, Mike Vogel and Cameron Richardson
DIRECTED BY Steve Boyum
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Supercross is directed by Steve Boyum, a prolific stuntman-stunt co-ordinator who has worked on everything from True Lies and Lethal Weapon 3 to The Blues Brothers. It tells the story of the Carlyle brothers, both talented motocross riders who, despite their differences – one lives life on the edge, natch, and the other is kind of uptight – are united by fraternal bonds and their love of sport. There’s also something to do with a dead father, but the plot doesn’t follow that thread and neither will I.
Supercross, for the uninitiated, is the stadium version of motocross, in which competitors race high-performance off-road motorbikes around a dirt track of dangerous jumps and obstacles. In this movie, the impetuous brother, Trip (Mike Vogel), is the more talented rider, but the more sensible K.C. (Steve Howey – exactly what you’d get if you rubbed Ben Affleck all over Hayden Christensen) is the one who gets signed and becomes a well-paid "factory rider." And what follows?
Well, there’s some resentment, but not much. There’s competition, but not the cutthroat kind. Fame, as it turns out, has pitfalls, but they aren’t really a big deal. Along the way, the brothers get girlfriends (the uptight one gets a law student and the edgy one gets a spunky motocross chick – guess which one is brunette?), but the road to romance isn’t particularly complicated. Because every part of Supercross is pure cliché, there’s no room for suspense. Am I really giving anything away when I say, yup, he wins?
The movie’s pacing is uneven and it has a few lost plot threads – problems that make it seem slightly aimless. However, the trade-off for these missing plot points and peculiar time lapses is that Supercross is mercifully short. It’s written entirely without subtlety, incorporating plenty of banter and slang, which will be physically painful to hear 10 years from now. But then, I don’t think anyone involved with this movie is expecting it to be featured at future cult movie nights or sprinkled into the classic Oscar clips. Supercross is what it is, and most of the time it’s just soundtrack, choppy editing, swishy hair, growling bikes, "dude," "gnarly" and "Why don’t you just ask her out, bro?"
If there is one thing to recommend Supercross, it’s the film’s surprisingly amiable tone. In a genre that usually shows relationships disintegrating under the brutal pressure of fame and rivalry, this movie is about the sweeter side of sport. Supercross, despite its hard-ass tagline ("fear nothing, risk everything"), is mostly about the value of teamwork and competition. It even raises a couple of interesting points – the merits of individuality versus co-operation and the difference between loyalty and subjugation. To its credit, Supercross also stuffs in a teensy whiff of feminism in that the girlfriends are both clever (although not in an emasculating way). But this is really reaching. Supercross is for supercross fans, not for movie fans. |
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