Review of Rocket Science (2007) by Radcliff M — 18 Jul 2008

Rocket Science is the story about a boy with a stutter who is recruited by Ginny, the star of the school's debate team. This boy, Hal Hefner played by the talented Reece Thompson, falls for Ginny and decides to try his luck at the debate team.

I heard a lot of good things about this film. I heard it compared to the great Rushmore and the brilliant The Squid and the Whale. This, sadly is not true. It doesn't have the humor, humanity, or talent behind either of those films.

It is, in reality, illogical and really annoying. Maybe i'm a bad person for getting annoyed at a kid faking a stutter, but I did. The entire movie didn't really work for me. First of all just the premise a someone who can't speak fluently joining the debate team is unbelievable.

Maybe it's not that he joined it, it's that everyone played along and pretended that he could do it. No one told him, "Hey maybe this isn't for you." Also the character of Hal is rather an unlikable character in the first place.

Add the fact that you get annoyed every time he opens his mouth to talk and you get a character it's hard to feel sympathy for. All the characters were difficult to get involved it. It felt as if they were written to make a point as opposed to be characters.

The brother was weird and the Korean friend rather pointless. The mom and her boyfriend were just awkward. There was no real reason for any of them. There were good parts to it. The opening scene sets you up for a much better movie than what follows and some of the performances are very good.

The leads, Reece Thompson and Anna Kendrick are both very good. Thompson in particular is quite promising even if his character annoyed the crap out of me. But that was more the way it was written, not the way it was acted.

All it all a bland waste. It had the echos of a better film, but didn't pay off in the end.