Winning Disney+ pic, amusingly, if often exhaustingly, cleaves to underdog/outlier tropes, Sports Striver Division, as basketball mad Asian-American high schooler Bloom Li brags his way into a hot mess in order to impress a girl by proving a 5'8" sophomore can dunk at rim regulation height. That slightly breathless run-on sentence mirroring the film’s ADHD filmmaking style (Michael Bay meets Nickelodeon), but which holds only for the film’s first two acts. You know the drill: challenge & bravado lead to a bet against blonde cookie-cutter All-American varsity athlete; BFF film nerd covering every angle with . . . angles; reluctant ‘coach’ becomes a believer; working single mom unable/unwilling to see what’s going on in front of her nose; pretty girl who chooses him over the pretty boy; wild party that sorts out alliances; practice, practice, practice if you wanna reach the heights. Standard issue teen fare, with personal goals kept fresh & lively by easy-going diversity casting choices. Like Bloom, whose off-the-beat staccato delivery (voice & motion) is helped from looks that change on every new camera set-up and under three very different hair cuts. But the film truly comes to life after that fake-out second-act ending; altering style, tempo, even lighting to comment & curdle via swelled head and a deep dark secret on all that’s come before. Why it’s just possible the bad guys have a point or two after all, the runt brigade getting just desserts. A bit of discomfort and insight before Bloom blooms.
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: While not truly comparable, DUNK shows how the little film musical that couldn’t, DEAR EVAN HANSEN, just might have worked. Lots of similar story beats and a chance to watch as high school aged kids play high-schoolers.
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