Is it fantasy? Or what?

Rating: 2/10 (6 July 2008)

I wasn't totally irritated by this movie, but it has that somewhat recent Hollywood practice of turning a fantasy movie into a 'comedy/drama' with some -apparently- moral lessons. The plot was pointless. It is beyond impossible that anything close to reality happened in this movie. But when the continuously overacting Black gets that serious look and the music indicates an important subject relating to the student's life, I can't help but cringe. I don't care about the copying of other movies. Hollywood only has a small number of plot formulas to work with. THEY ARE MARKETING FOR THE BOTTOM LINE! What I do care about is having a silly fantasy movie made into a semi-serious kids movie. Keep it a kids movie and make it all fantasy. Just think of how popular Animal House would have been if it had any moments of moral seriousness. How about the Blues Brothers? The only thing that kept me watching this zero movie was that the kids were really playing their instruments, at least somewhat. That's why I gave it a 2 star.