Eddie's Million Dollar Cook-Off

Taylor Ball does a great job in this movie. Unlike some other critics that have posted here, I do not mind the contrived somewhat forced plot. Most Disney vehicles are forced and contrived, and that is part of the childlike magic that is the wonder of Disney. I, for one, loved the movie and will buy it for my Disney collection.

Ball's sitcom is good stuff as well. I look forward to seeing more of this young man in the future. Not since Brandon de Wilde (Born 1942-Died 1972) has there been a young male actor that flows well on the screen with an ease that makes it seem as if he is not having to work at it. I hope Disney uses him more.

Maybe I'm just in the wrong age bracket to really get into this film. But for the most part I found it dull and boring. I found myself flipping the channel quite often to see what else was on. That said, I have watched and enjoyed several other recent Disney Channel Original Movies, so it's not just I'm anti-Disney.

Taylor Ball did a good job as the lead and Orlando Brown did a good job with his supporting part. The other boy (whose name I don't know) who played his friend was pretty good as well. But some of the other acting left a lot be desired. I particularly thought the girl who played Bridget was not a great actress.

The plot was contrived. I couldn't understand why the whole school would get so worked up about him liking cooking. They might make fun of him, but if he really was the star baseball player I doubt they would have gotten angry with him like that. And I found myself not caring at the end what would happen, even though I knew they would eventually win the baseball game.

And like others have said, the baseball games were quite unrealistic.

Not a bad movie, just not great. It sends a good message to kids about pursuing your dreams and doing what you like to do, but the message itself comes across pretty heavy handed.

Hank Ogden (Mark L. Taylor) is a coach for a junior-high level community baseball team, the Groundhogs. Unfortunately, the team is much closer to the Bad News Bears than the New York Yankees. Hank's son Eddie (Taylor Ball) is one of the few quality players, and Hank thinks he has a shot of making it to the major leagues. Although Eddie likes baseball, he discovers that his true passion is for cooking. Eddie's Million Dollar Cook-Off is the comic tale of conflicting desires and expectations between Eddie and his friends, family and teammates over his aspirations.

Although some viewers may have difficulty looking past the exaggerated social beliefs and interactions fueling a prominent "moral of the story", this is a great, funny film that succeeds because of the style, subtlety and comic sense of director Paul Hoen, aided by excellent performances. I don't think I've ever seen food fights filmed this artfully before. Yes, food fights are clichéd, and much of the script, on its own, would be somewhat clichéd and banal, but Hoen and the cast manage to make the film feel fresh and original. I almost felt as though I had never seen a film centered around food before--your eyes are opened to the many metaphorical ways that such a commonplace thing is woven through our lives.

Of course, this film isn't just about food, though. Eddie's Million Dollar Cook-Off is intended to help shatter gender stereotypes--especially the way we try to graft them on to our children. The message is to follow your dreams, and be what you want to be, whether it's what others have planned for you, or expect of you, or not. At the same time, there's a message about supporting others in following their dreams. These are valuable messages for people of any age, not just kids, and the exaggerated and old-fashioned-seeming pigeonholing shown by the characters in the film are only cartoonish to emphasize the point.

This might all sound dreadfully serious and preachy, but the film doesn't tend to play that way. It plays as lighthearted, humorous and heartwarming. Just be careful that your kids don't have easy access to blenders and ovens after they watch the film, or you'll have some serious cleaning to do.

A 9 out of 10 from me.

Eddies Million Dollar Cook-off was a good movie, granted i am older than most of the people that were cast in this movie. I feel that everyone could relate to this movie, like when eddies friends made fun of him for cooking, anyones friends could do that. I think that EMDCO was better than half the disney movies that are on . It shows that girls and guys can do the samething, that guys can cook and girls can play the same sport as guys.It has a good cast good writing and is something that everone should be able to relatable to at one point in their life.

A typical upbeat kids movie but with a notable different message. The REAL story is that our hero, 14 year old Eddie comes out. The jock goes through all of the angst, guilt, rejection and fear that any 14 year old boy would have upon realizing he was "different." However, Disney, in their infinite wisdom, super sanitizes the story so that Eddie comes out as a CHEF instead of GAY. I wont criticize it too much because even this would have been a big stretch for Hollywood five years ago. Cute and entertaining if you don't have much to do. CMC, Sherman Oaks, CA