Rocky Redux

Rating: 8/10 (27 April 2013)

Admittedly, I fell for it. I actually had a great time during Here Comes the Boom. And all the way to the predictable sports ending.
This movie screams the stereotypical "Based on/Inspired by/Is a" true sports underdog story, but I looked it up. Yes! I did research. It's not. Sorry, spoiler.
But, I didn't look that up until after the movie was over. And that's too bad, because all the way through this, I was finding this very cliché, predictable and has an enormously weak premise if this happened in real life.
That all said, it's still a very cliché, predictable and has an enormously weak premise and even thenI had a good time. The humor made me laugh out loud at moments, the heart was there and best of all, Kevin James ran around without a shirt on for a good sixth of the movie. Bonus!, but I understand irrelevant.
Terrible teacher, Scott (James,) with a minute, though growing, amount of a heart takes on the self-imposed task of raising $48,000 to save both his peer and music teacher's job and the entire school's music department. After a series of failed money attempts, Scott meets the right folks to align him with the cash from mixed-martial art fighting. Will Scott raise enough? Will he die trying since this is MMA and he's an overweight, out-of-shape, inexperienced, late-forties dude? Will he get the girl?
Seriously? I don't like spoiling major plot points, and I won't start here since you can draw your own conclusions. And yet AND YET
I still had a great time. I went along for the ride and in rare form for me and my reviews, I ditched the critic side. Perhaps it was because the characters had charisma, or because the comedy did make me laugh, or the energy from the cast and their respective fictional characters had me pumped. Maybe it was the Vegas shots I wasn't expecting. I dunno. I just had fun.
And that inevitable finale, with the funny homage to the movie this might be slightly imitating, had me sitting up and cheering. I even loved so much the following line by the Henry Winkler character I grew to love:
"You've already done it. To hell with my job. Look up there, look at those kidsLet me tell you what you would see. You would see a bunch of our students witnessing complete resolve in the face of an unbearable obstacle. They are invested. Scott, they're inspired. That's what we're supposed to do as teachers, right? Inspire. You can quit right now and everything that we've worked will have been accomplished. You know, last night, Molie said to me on the phone that you thought I was your hero. You're mine." – Marty.
I know this movie, on the surface, may appear like cheese. And it's certainly one I would normally chew up and spit outBut, on a rare occasion, they got to me and they won. I had fun and would recommend this movie.