Kickin' It Old Skool (2007)

Simply A Masterpiece

Don't listen to the negative reviews

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

At a talent show in 1986, young Justin Schumacher suffers a head injury and slips into a coma. Twenty years later, Justin awakes with the mindset and experience of a 12-year-old. He decides to reunite the members of his former dance team and revive their short-lived careers, to win a local talent competition and help his parents save their house.....When Jamie Kennedy was in the Scream series, he was one of the stand out characters in the franchise, and the studios must have sat up and took notice of a taken the had when he was acting under another writer.TV shows aside, and being mistaken for Seth Green, Jamie Kennedy's film career hasn't really been anything other than mundane, and he must have signed a multi picture deal with a company, because this looks and feels like it was rushed and released to end said contract.But it's a neat concept, mixing Hard To Kill with The Wedding Singer, but the eighties references are not there, and when they are, it's the predictable, popular ones that you can see coming a mile off, so they are not nostalgic, just eye-rollingly obvious.Kennedy is okay, but he has the same facial expression throughout the film, and the rest if his entourage are your atypical stereotypes you would expect to see in a film like this, but not as secondary characters.....lazy writing.And it's at least 20 minutes too long.So when all else fails in the writing department, always have a plethora of vomit, cake, and urine gags at hand, and include an extended dance off finale for good measure.With all good intentions, it's a bit rubbish.

When people make movies as bad as this, do they attend their premieres? I really wanna know. How do they show their faces? I guess "comedies" like KICKIN' IT OLD SCHOOL must appeal to some kind of illiterate unschooled trailer-trash drool-toothed dipsticks, otherwise somebody fellated some major pole to get this greenlighted.Was it the minimal "draw" of comedians Jamie Kennedy and Bobby Lee (both naturally funny guys, but atrocious in this movie)? Was it the anachronistic break dancing craze, a proved cash cow in the distant past? Was it that comet that passed near Earth and birthed a two-headed calf? The fish-out-of-water premise always has potential: Justin (Alexander Calvert), a hot young breakdancer in the 80s, lands on his head and goes into a coma. He wakes 20 years later (retaining his 14-year-old mentality, which explains why he is now Jamie Kennedy) and reunites his break dancing team from the old days - Miguel A. Núñez Jr., Bobby Lee and Aris Alvarado, losers all, who can't dance any more, let alone act. They enter a dance comp for some inane reason, but Justin's agenda is to show his ex-girl (Maria Menounos) he can still kick it, so she will leave her asshole boyfriend (Michael Rosenbaum) for him. It could have worked, had this movie hired an actual director, actual writers and actual actors.What irks about KICKIN' IT OLD SCHOOL is that, like many movies of its lowbrow ilk, stupidity and non-talent is lauded. It is not a bad thing that Our Heroes "win" the day, but that they win without any effort; they win when others are so clearly superior; they win by being the biggest retards on stage - and that is supposedly how you win. No, kids. It's not. Even this bad movie (and others like it) is not made by people who DON'T know what they're doing. Yet this movie tells us a competition can be won if you don't know what you're doing; it tells us that all those years of practice for the other competitors counts for nothing; it tells us you can be a virtuoso at a craft without going through the rigors of becoming a virtuoso. (Like those bogus exercise-machine ads that claim, "You don't even break a sweat!" Hey, great! No pain AND gain!) And that's entirely unacceptable.The funny thing about this movie (--there's something funny about this movie?) is that Bobby Lee's "Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto" bit looks hilarious in the trailers, in the film, like a Chinese burn. So too with the down-wid-it tongue-in-cheek title, all the failed gags, embarrassing plot points and mistimed bits. Nothing works outside of the thirty-second trailer.What almost became an Olympic sport in the 80s has been marginalized in the 2000s, but the people who still do it, do it extremely well. And that's the only redeeming factor in this movie - the dancing. Dated though it is stylistically, we appreciate the astounding expertise of the kids who can still jam, break, lock, snap, crackle and pop it.Unfortunately, expertise is something Jamie Kennedy and his crew of jackasses lack, so we know how it's going to end - yes, he wins the dance comp, gets the girl, and somewhere, Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire and Gregory Hines are turning in their graves.--Review by Poffy The Cucumber (for Poffy's Movie Mania).

As a young boy, Justin (Alexander Calvert) felt down hard on the floor trying to do some fancy break dancing for a talent show at school. Twenty years has passed, Justin (Jamie Kennedy) woke up from his coma. Although he still has the mind of a twelve year old trapped in a 32 year old body. He finds out that his parents (Christopher McDonald and Debra Jo Rapp) might lose their home, after trying to pay off Justin's medical bills. He decides to get back his old dance crew (Miguel A. Nunez, Jr., Bobby Lee and Avis Alvarado) to help him win back his parents house. Justin discovers that his long time crush (Maria Menounos) is marring the bully (Michael Rosenbaum), he truly hated. But Justn hasn't realized yet that music has changed and a whole new generation of fancy foot-steppers are far superior. Since he missed two decades, it is time to grow up... a little.Directed by Harv Glazer (Bitten) made an silly comedy that has some goofy laughs. Kennedy offers more charm that he did in "Malibu's Most Wanted". But the differences between the two, his early starring role had a much slicker look. It will certainly remind you of the film "Big" and other break dancing movies of the 1980's. The movie has a cool retro 80's soundtrack and some of the dance moves are good. "Kickin It Old Skool" is not a great comedy but it's not boring either and acting or the quality of the feature looks truly average. But it does offers some laughs and probably fans of Kennedy will enjoy this one best. Some amusing cameos as well. Super 35. (*** 1/2 out of *****).

I wasn't going to write a review but I had to do something when I discovered IMDb has nothing lower than 1 star.I am absolutely floored by the fact that 455 people gave this movie 10 stars. I can only assume that they were investors who are trying to salvage whatever they can by tricking naive readers into going to see this total disaster. I caught this on cable (nothing else on) and my jaw dropped minutes after it started and I kept watching because I truly could not believe it could get worse. Man, was I wrong! I had seen the previews, thought it had potential and considered seeing in a theater. Pfffew.The scenes with Maria Menounos are priceless. She absolutely deserves some kind of award for that performance. In the same way IMDb needs to add a zero rating for this specific movie, the Oscars need a brand new category for the role of Jennifer in Kicking It Old Skool. In fact, I've just decided to coin the acronym KIOS and use it whenever I see someone who is acting the way Maria acts in this movie.I feel sorry for anyone who spent any money watching this movie. And to the 455 investors, your 10 star ratings were totally KIOS.