¡Cómo mola ser mono!

Fun, but took over 50 minutes for the monkey to play hockey

First the dog plays basketball. Then football. Then soccer. Then baseball with a racoon. Now we have a monkey playing hockey, a sequel where the same monkey skateboards, and according to this web site there is a third DTV movie starring the horrible primate on the way! Am I the only person on the planet who detests animal-sport movies?! I watched this on the Disney Channel when there was nothing on, and it was so predictable I was actually telling the movie what to do. Okay old man, could you like die in the next five seconds please? Ah, thanks. Could the evil coach object to a monkey playing hockey only to be reprimanded because there's no rule against monkeys playing hockey? Wow, thanks for that. Sheesh. For some reason they decided to throw in a deaf girl plot but then they throw in another Air Bud cliche by having a smart villan and a dumb sidekick looking for the monkey so they can experiment on him. Could someone write a script please?! A really odd scene is where the 'cool' girl (if there is such a thing in the 5th grade) passes out birthday party invitations to all the kids in class. The deaf girl gets all mopey. Suddenly the cool girl starts THROWING these invitations in the air and they go everywhere, and the whole thing is in slow motion. Now, later on the film says the deaf girl wasn't invited. Well, if the cool girl was just throwing them for people to pick up, it doesn't seem like they were personalized. Also, she clearly states that 'everyone' can come. So why didn't the deaf girl just grab one and show up for the party? It's not like the cool girl can turn away a wimpering deaf kid. Anyway, here are the top five ideas for the future of animal-sport flicks:

1. A giraffe plays volleyball (and can always spike it!) 2. A polar bear is adopted by a middle school dodgeball team 3. The last remaining dodo takes up archery 4. Some wacky seals try out for a Canadian water polo league 5. A one-legged cat competes in the Olympic track event

Do I sound sarcastic? Good. MVP may not suck the big donkey, but it is not anything special by any stretch of the mind. 2/4 stars.

As a future ASL interpreter and general Deaf culture enthusiast, I watch any movie I can find with sign language or Deaf characters. Imagine my shock when, not only was the character of Tara not played by a Deaf actress, she was not portrayed very well by the hearing one! I understand that this was a subplot, and probably not a very important one to most people (after all, there was an animal on screen! Doing human-y things!), but some accuracy could have been striven for. Of all the Deaf and hearing impaired children I have worked with and been friends with, not one of them signs with their mouth shut. In fact, ASL has a very strong facial element, involving mouth movement and some sounds. And any family that knew how to sign would hopefully not force their child to lipread at home. Even the best lipreader only gets about 70% of the words spoken compared to 100% of the words signed in the beautiful and eloquent language called ASL. If a movie-making team can't spend the time and effort to get a Deaf character right, they shouldn't include one at all. I appreciate they had to have someone who could communicate with the chimp, but they could have made up something much more believable than a semi-famous hearing actress trying to convince me she's Deaf. Like the chimp learning to talk for the role.

I thought the movie was adoring! Monkeys are so intelligent! I personally never liked movies with monkeys in them (e.g. Dunston Checks In, Mighty Joe Young etc.) But thanks to my baby cousin for requesting this movie, as I would have never known the amazing qualities that a monkey can have!

Jack, the monkey, is an amazing creature. It never strikes to ANYONE that it's possible for a monkey to skate on ice! Even I, myself have a little trouble sometimes!

Jamie Renee Smith is a great actor! Since she couldn't speak that well, we had to rely on her facial expressions, which were very believable.

Kevin Zegers, what can I say? Great looking actor, I must say, but I really don't think he was put to his full potential for this movie. He always seemed to look a little nervous most of the time. Otherwise, brilliant movie, and I suggest ANYONE who wants something to do, watch this movie!

Always on Daytime Sky movies, terrible plot, awful wooden acting. Was watching this while decorating, and being truthful, was difficult to decide whether this or the paint was more interesting to watch.

AVOID AVOID AVOID.

I do not understand why there are now three versions of this primate film, and why SKY seem it important enough to show all of these, most weekdays, several times a day.

Perhaps it was because they got them on discount.

Please vote with your feet and get sky and other companies to take this dross off our screens.