¡Cómo mola ser mono!

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.

The Chimpanzee and the girl steal the show, but the story is beaten and cliché ... Cute and silly...

Jack, a chimp, has been trained by a college professor, Dr. Kendall (Lomax Study) to do various human tasks. Each week, a small gathering of adults and children come to a seminar to see his progress. But, alas, one night, the prof has a heart attack and passes away. The head of the department wants to sell him to the highest bidder, even if it means Jack will be subjected to experimentation. That cannot happen, so a janitor, Larry, smuggles Jack out of the lab and puts him on a train to California. That's where Jack's family resides. However, Jack oversleeps and ends up in British Columbia! There, a California family has just transplanted themselves as residents. The son, Steven (Kevin Zegers) is a hockey player who joins a young adult team. Of course, they give him grief for thinking a So-Cal guy can compete with Canadian players. Even in a worse situation is Steve's sister Tara (Jamie Renee Smith) who is deaf and has no luck making friends at her new school. It is Tara who finds Jack and takes him to her room. Before long, Jack is skating alongside Steven and gets himself "placed" on the team. Since the chimp can go through other skaters legs and perform other unusual feats, Steven's team starts winning big. But, with the college looking for their once valuable primate, will everyone's dreams be spoiled? This is a cute film with a funny script and a nice cast. It has a bevy of clichés, as to its story, but each one works enjoyably. No, a chimp would never be allowed on a team, but it doesn't matter. Only animal activists will frown at the flick so, unless you are one of those, get this MVP for your own Most Valuable Family.

Okay, like the guy above me, I like, totally loved this movie. Why did I love it? 'Cause it was frigg'n sweet, that's why.

See, this movie is kinda like a microcosm of society. There's like, this guy, right, who gets picked on all his life for being different. The guy, in this movie, is really a monkey (JACK I LUV U). So, when society gets a guy down, they totally go nuts and join a hockey team and smash people in the face with pucks. I learned a lot from this movie because of that! The sweetest part was when Jack was hanging out outside the hockey rink, smokin' a jay. The audience is like, "what's this street-smart go-getter planning to do?" Then, this guy who threw a cup at his head while he was getting ready to nail the puck in and win the game starts to walk out of the building. Jack, sweet as ever, grabs a skateboard and chucks it at his head and says something like "I hope you still aren't 'board'!" and then he laughs for the remaining half hour of the movie.

Words cannot describe my feelings for this movie. It brings out something powerful in me... like, I dunno, the need to play video games and eat pizza just like Jack would. There are some movies that grab you, and then there are movies which pick you up and slam you against the wall about fourteen times. This is the latter. Thank you, and god bless.

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.