Score: A Hockey Musical

I've read a lot of reviews of this film out of its debut at TIFF, most of them negative, contrasting the film with the normal festival fare. And comparatively, no it's not an art house film, deeply layered, full of subtext or sparking deep thought later.

I, however, wasn't expecting that. I was expecting a fun, corny musical about our nation's favourite past-time and that's exactly what I got. It's sweet, it made me laugh aloud several times, and I simply had a very good time watching the film.

Noah Reid played the very likable male lead, Farley. He has a pleasant voice, looked natural on the ice, and nothing in his performance felt forced or fake. I hope to see him again. The best word I can think of to describe Allie MacDonald's girl-next-door character of Eve is winsome. I forgot that Stephen McHattie has done comedy before, so his turn as the owner of a pro-hockey team was surprising in how deft it is. Also enjoyable were Farley's coach and teammates, and George Stroumboulopoulos as the rink announcer.

Really, the only weak link in performance was Olivia Newton-John who seemed too stiff for the character that she was portraying. And despite how great they were individually, there wasn't a lot of chemistry between Farley and Eve.

The songs ran about fifty-fifty. Some were catchy and well-orchestrated. Some felt as though they had been written for an amateur musical.

All-in-all, I think the movie gives you exactly what you expect when you go to see a movie called "Score: A Hockey Musical". It's enjoyable, and charming, and I would recommend it to musical and hockey fans alike.

i had to watch this movie. of course i had to. it looked like the most ridiculous film of all time. and you know what? it was. i can't decide if i enjoyed this movie or not. well, no, i didn't enjoy this movie. i have trouble imagining how anyone could. but i did, somewhat, enjoy the experience of watching it. every time i thought it couldn't get sillier, it did. for the entire duration, i had this sad smile on my face, shaking my head and thinking "this is what we opened the TIFF with... no wonder nobody takes Canadian cinema seriously".

its just so awful in every way. it makes me sad that people like hawksley workman and george stroumbolopolous had anything to do with it.

ah well. it was a hockey musical. could it possibly have been good? i don't think so.

I never thought anybody could dream up the combination of hockey and musical. Someone did, and Score: A Hockey musical is the result. And it is mostly what you can expect of such an unlikely combination. A cheesy, mildly entertaining string of musical numbers and a story without a trace of suspense.

It was rather amusing to see the on ice choreographed dances, hockey players in full gear normally doesn't do that. Some lyrics were quite good as well. Too much, however, was just cheesy and nothing but tedious clichés.

That the love story couldn't produce a spark to save the movies life was the tipping point though. A fun experiment, but don't expect anyone to try anytime soon again. It just doesn't work out.

Score one for conventional stories...

What an odd movie this is. It's like Glee meets hockey... not that I really know what Glee is like because God forbid I watch such a program... but I have an idea. Hockey players dancing and singing. It's a pretty stupid movie but as a hockey fan, I found many of the musical numbers rather funny to watch; I was laughing quite a bit! I'm surprised at myself for thinking that I'd actually consider watching this again someday and that says something about how worthwhile a movie is.

5.6 / 10

--Zoooma, a Kat Pirate Screener!

I don't know how to account for the two stars. I guess the camera was stable and the audio was clear. I didn't see the microphone so that's a good thing.

This is not a film. This is an embarrassment. The music is so poor it's really embarrassing.

I'm not a big fan of musicals, but the Jungle Book, Moulin Rouge, Chicago were entertaining. They had good songs, the music is great (especially the Jungle Book), great lyrics and a good story.

This has none of those ingredients. The music is elevator music quality. The lyrics sound like they're written by a 12-year-old who's impressed with rhyming Venus and penis.

For some reason this film is advertising for other films or attempting to appeal/pander to the audience by referring to other films. Why mention the Notebook? The Notebook or any half-decent film would not give a shout-out to some Canadian films, so why do you do it in your films?

The rhymes are really poor, rhyming "alone" with "poem." The meter is messed up, there's a lyric about the umbilical chord which was so forced.

In this masterpiece, the boy's family forces a hockey scout to listen to their terrible songs. The director is completely oblivious to that irony.

There's just random Canadian stuff thrown to pander to the extremely small market. His girlfriend has a fragrance allergy. There are random "ehs" thrown in the lyrics. A British musical would not put "innit" in their lyrics, but British filmmakers are professionals and would hire professional writers to write their lyrics. This director felt that he can do it all, write songs, write the screenplay and direct.

If I were him I would make a documentary on how I tried to retrieve and destroy every last copy of this film.

If you are unaware, this was a box office failure. It wasn't a success on any level afterwards. As of speaking it is not available on iTunes anywhere except Ireland. It takes less than 4 rentals/purchases to make it worthwhile keeping it in the iTunes store, so this is not even getting single digit rentals. It has not been released on Bluray. And finally, even pirates are not pirating this thing. It is not worth anything to anyone.

Don't believe me? Go find a copy and watch it. Then come back here and say "you were wrong." Write a review. The problem is that some people give this film 10 stars raising it score to 4.9. 18% have given this film 10 stars, meaning they think this is one of the best films of all time.

I give it two stars and the average is 4.9. Some say 10, some say 1 and I say 2. We can't all be right.

FYI, Mr. Director, Venus is the second closest planet to the sun. Saying (wear a sweater, out there) "it's colder than Venus" doesn't make that much sense. Earth is colder than Venus. Not that you care. You probably wrote this film in 12 hours using a "How to make a film in two weeks and make millions" self-help book.