Johnny Utah takes more acting skill suppressant pills and then puts on a football helmet

Rating: Null/10 (9 December 2002)

In this film, Keanu Reeves reprises his role as an anthropomorphic park bench, a role he's made famous in such films as 'Point Break', 'The Devil's Advocate', and 'The Matrix'. This time, that loveable bench straps on a football uniform, and gives his woodiest performance yet.

It's not hard to believe that women would want to see the hot stupid popular actor play the role of the stereotypical hot stupid popular guy on film, and I'll admit that seeing stripper/cheerleaders had to be a huge draw for the guys as well. What's confusing about this phenomenally bad film is that people not only could stomach the entirety of it, but that they've actually praised it in public without fear of retribution.
Once the true horror of this film's inevitable, clichemobile plot became obvious to me, I could only manage to occupy myself by guessing successfully what the next scene would bring. It was like a choose your own adventure book on the silver screen, only I kept making all the wrong choices, and the movie kept going along with them anyway. Imagine being a NFL cheerleader and saying this to motivate your colleagues: "Hey girls, those football players are striking. I say we go with them! Sure they make millions, and we make $10 an hour, and there are hundreds of thousands of high school seniors who would be glad to take our place, but if we strike, it'll make for much more interesting professional stripper replacements when the owners of the team find it strangely impossible to find any new cheerleaders!" I'll note that the run-on quote I wrote up there delineates basically what happened in the movie, and, you got it, it makes no sense whatsoever.

Speaking of choices, should actors be given BAC tests before they're allowed to sign up for a movie? Gene Hackman must have been near comatose when he signed his career away with this masterpiece. He may have gone for a rip as a copy of the great Bear Bryant in his role as the motivational speaker/football coach, but this wasn't the movie to do it in. Gene Hackman is a good actor. He knows character, he knows expression, and he knows a good film when he sees one. I'm guessing somebody did this to him for revenge or something.
Lets go back to Keanu "Benchy" Reeves for a second because he's so disturbing. Did anybody else notice that despite playing a character who was down in the dumps, gets the shot of his life, finds love, rallies his team to the championship, and learns to have confidence in himself, his face has the same expression during the entirety of the film? Holy line-reading mannequins, Batman! I've got it! He really died after Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey and was embalmed and allowed to posthumously continue horrifying us on film!
What this basically all means is, if you really like movies which skillfully tread that tightrope between being funny or being meaningful in any way, then you're going to likely refer to this as the greatest movie you've ever seen. Were such attributes actually seen as positive in the film business, then this might actually be the greatest movie we've ever seen.

The fact is, football players dancing and singing, Keanu Reeves accidentally playing his most serious role ever (ironically during a comedy film), a guy repeatedly dropping a football, and a hot cheerleader making out with a park bench that's draped in a football jersey aren't funny at all. Just because a movie has a motivational soundtrack doesn't mean you're supposed to feel for this group of cops, felons, and eccentrics. I liked Rudy. I liked Major League. This movie was just atrocious.
Oh BTW if you said "This movie was great!" I highly recommend 'Down Periscope'. It'll knock your socks off.