Rocket Science (2007)

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Ben Wekselbaum and Ginny Ryerson (Anna Kendrick) are fast-talking high school debate teammates in Plainsboro, New Jersey. Then Ben goes blank in the big tournament and Ginny is stuck with second place. In school, Hal Hefner (Reece Thompson) stutters terribly. His parents are separated and his brother is a kleptomaniac. He's struggling and then surprisingly Ginny recruits him for the debate team. She wants to mold him into her new partner.Anna Kendrick's quick talking is hilarious. It's a relentless non-stop flow of thoughts. Reece Thompson is endearing. When he tells her that she's not an object of desire for pedophiles, her reply "That's the worst thing anyone has ever said to me" killed me. There is this aura of quirky indie that will either enchant the audience or annoying them. I could probably use less of it. Hal needs a better friend character. I would have loved to see Jonah Hill in that role. The movie doesn't quite work all the time when Ginny isn't with Hal.

You know how there are stories that are adversity to triumph, unstable to stable, confused to knowing. This is not a happy story, i sat through all the frustrating bits in the movies, putting my shirt over my head whenever he tried to debate with his enormous stutter, thinking its okay, because I'm gonna see some scenes at the end where he has finally lost his stutter. I didn't. Maybe i had the wrong idea when i watched this movie, i was convinced from start till perhaps the last scene, that i was going to see an inspiring transformation, where i would no longer feel sorry for the kid, and that marred my view on the film. All i could think about during the whole film is not what this kid was talking about, what he was thinking about, but how he was speaking. Its like a movie where the main character looks like a bunyip, all you can think about is this main character looks like a bunyip, and not really what he/she is saying. I was convinced the inevitable transformation was going to be in his speaking patterns so i wasn't particularly interested in his views on love, because I'm sorry, i don't mean to be offensive to anybody but having a speech impediment as BAD as that, is something i couldn't bear to hear for the rest of my life, you have to try and do something about it. I thought thats what this movie was about! Look I'm sure what the kid was saying was important, and meaningful, but i was looking for more blunt changes that were imperative to me saying at the end of the movie, wow that was good. The stutter was a vehicle to portray a message about love when i went through the whole movie thinking it was the opposite, that all the references to love would make him lose his stutter. Not a horrible movie, but after i finished watching it, i felt horrible, Im a bit tired of movie producers thinking 'it will be more meaningful if we deprive the movie of a happy ending'. To be honest, i don't need happy endings, but what i do need is some light. At the end of 'Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind' i was left thinking, despite its lack of a cliché happy ending, that the main characters were not doomed because of it, that they could bounce back from the issues in the movie. I felt at the end of 'Rocket Science' that the kid was never going to get rid of his stutter, and when did his last debate and he turned to the judges and said 'Im killing it right?' that he was in fact, not killing it, he sucked, you can't debate in a musical tone, there was no growth there. Was it that hard to put a happy ending in!?!

A movie can get no more boring than this. It's a movie about a little, annoying twit with a stutter who gets to help a girl out on the debate team. The boy is Hal (Reece Thompson, just annoying as hell in this.) The girl is Ginny (Anna Kendrick, also pretty bad in this.) Together they form an annoying, stupid predictable relationship. The only mild laugh was from Jonah Hill as a student who sits next to Ben at the library. The movie is a mess from start to finish. It's another annoying, extremely predictable teen comedy in which a no one gets to be a someone. There is no real plot, the characters feel too forced, and scripted, and the jokes are just depressing. I can't really say I was disappointed by this film- I knew nothing of it, although I regularly do like D'Agosto. I feel like I should have never seen it. It's 98 minutes of my life I'll never get back. It's such an annoying film. The main problem with the film is that the film presents itself with a main character I just wanted to shut up. It's a movie of such tedium and annoyance that I have to say it's one of the worst film I've seen in a long, long time.

"Throw me the cello!" Rocket Science is a film about finding your voice. Rather than detail the plot, which has been done elsewhere, here are what I consider to be the good and bad aspects of the film: Good:The vast majority of the cast are extremely good actors. Particularly liked 'Earl' and, of course, Hal, who managed to portray everything from the frustration stutterers feel, to the sheer jubilation of being able to vocalize, even if only occasionally.The characters were engaging.The cinematography gave the film a sense of movement through time that dramatically raised the stakes for the characters. Extremely good soundtrack that perfectly matches the tone.The ending was realistic.Bad: The film moves a little quickly in places, leaving it easy to miss key aspects of the plot.The main cello scene was the best portrayal of everyday anger that I have ever seen.The film has one scene that veers slightly too far into 'Artsiness for Artsines's sake' territory, and had me cringing. More could have been done with the little transvestite boy; an extremely interesting actor underused.If the ending was intended to show Hal accepting both himself and his stutter and thus finding his voice, why did the final scene show him struggling. I'm not suggesting he should have suddenly been able to give Kafka a run for his money, but it seemed a little too stilted.