The Moto-X Hunter reviews Supercross: The Movie.

I had a chance to catch an advanced screening of the new feature film, Supercross: The Movie. I’m by no means a Roger Ebert, or even a Richard Roeper for that matter, but here it goes.

    Like most motocrossers, the fact that there are motorcycles on the big screen was reason enough for me to check out the movie in the first place. I went in with an open mind, fully aware that there were going to be some glaring inaccuracies and was very optimistic. Executive Director, David Borg, was in the audience to gauge peoples’ reactions. After a brief radio station giveaway and cell phone warnings, the movie began.

    Right off the bat, professional racer cameos were plentiful. It was interesting to see which riders drew an actual ovation and cat-calling from the crowd. The crowd cheered loudest when James Stewart was shown throwing out a nac-nac in a supercross race. Since the film was shot in 2002, Ricky Carmichael was still on a Honda and Jeremy Mcgrath was on a KTM.

    The basic storyline is two competitive, motocross racing brothers struggle to make it from race to race. The one brother, KC, is the older, more calculating, responsible brother. While the other brother, Trip is the wild, risk it all, just-like-his-motorcycle-gang-father type. KC wins a factory ride with a fictitious motorcycle manufacturer called American Nami. Tyler Evans gets the biggest role of the actual racers and got a lot of screen time. He plays the bad guy who tangles with Trip and injures him to the point that Trip can no longer race. KC loses his ride because he can’t play second fiddle to the supposed champ/teammate and goes on to beat the champ on Trip’s old ride.

    The movie took about as long to watch as this did to read. I don’t know if it was because I was so into the fact I was watching motocross in a theatre or if it was due to the very short running time of one hour and 15 minutes. I also don’t know what Aaron Carter was doing in there for a total of fifteen seconds as the Supermoto champ, but I found it a little cheesy to say the least.

    Of course there were the usual miscues like two-stroke sounds coming from 450 four-strokes and extended sideways glances between riders in midair but there was actually an awful lot of excellent race footage. I could have done without the MTV-style editing with fast changing, blink-of-an-eye shots. They even pay homage to On Any Sunday, by throwing in a few split-screen shots of the racing.

    Ok listen, we all know you’re going to head out and see this movie anyway so why are we even having this conversation? Go check it out but don’t pay for more than an hour’s worth of parking because just as you get into the characters, the movie is already going for the Danny Zuko vs. Crater Face finale! No? How about Fonzie vs. the Mallachi Brothers? Ok, the Luke Skywalker vs. Darth Vader finale. You get the picture. I think the movie could have been longer. Of course, I could probably sit and watch JSR practice starts for two hours!

    Judging from the comments I heard after the movie, it’s plain that if you like motocross you’ll enjoy it, if you don’t, go down the hall and watch Sky High! Overall, I think it was well done and pretty true to the sport. They had to throw some romance and conflict in just to keep the non-moto people interested. It comes out on August 17, so go see it and tell us what you think.