MVP: Most Valuable Primate

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.

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.

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.

Let me start out by saying I am not a big sports fan, I do not like chimps, and I'm an accountant. I am normally not into comedies. I like practical and sober commentaries on the status of social consciousness. But I tell you, when I saw MVP, I did see a tint of social commentary, however, what sold me was the heart. The heart of a young chimp trying to make his way in an unforgiving human environment, reminds me of my struggles during my first tax season. This movie will make you laugh, it will make you cry, and it will even make you think, but most importantly, it will make you laugh while you think of crying.

The most astounding part of this movie is the potential of non-taxable income on the part of MVP. Here's a chimp who has the ability to play in the NHL, thus the ability to generate a lucrative income. I've done my research, and I've found no section of the Internal Revenue Code that applies to chimpanzees, or any other animal for that matter. Meaning, MVP could reap the multi-million dollar contracts we hear so much about, and to the dismay of the IRS, not report a dime! If this chimp is smart, which I dare say he is, he should invest this income into non-taxable municipal bonds. Yeah, that'll really get those fat cats in Washington mad.

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