Raising the Bar

I'm not sure what the director was thinking...for a gymnastics film the camera angles were so off and didn't show anything?! Why are there so many long closups on hands and oddly framed shots without the gymnastics in shot?

It was an entertaining movie, but was very disappointed that I didn't really get to see any of the routines. The camera angles only showed the hands or the feet, or a ceiling camera for the floor routines, but never the whole girl, like in American Anthem. It was very formulaic and I agree with a previous poster about the ending.

There's a fantastic scene in The Big Lebowski, where the enraged Jesus Quintana (John Turturro) screams "Laughable, man!" That's the only thing I could think of when watching this "movie". I surely didn't have high expectations, but I didn't expect anything as bad as what I saw.

Cheap production is all fine, not every movie needs to be a Hollywood blockbuster. But there's a minimum to expect from an indie film. Like... a half decent script. A story line that isn't so unnecessarily convoluted you give up after 20 minutes. Actors who can actually act. Dialogues that don't make you cringe every time someone on screen opens their mouth. Music that doesn't sounds like something out of a pilot for a TV series from the 1980's. But even with all that absent, this is a gymnastics movie. So surely you can show us some great gymnastics routines. Unfortunately, since the actresses aren't gymnasts, the camera has to resort to the most weird angles to obscure the lack of technique, and where stunt doubles are used - to obscure the faces. So not even that.

A laughable effort. 2/10

I will not add much to what has already been said about a bad movie with bad acting skills except this: Actress Kelli did a good job as the main character Kelly, she was basically the only factor which held this whole mess together and thus avoided a complete trainwreck. She should have her chance for "real" movies with "real" scripts and a real chance to show her acting skills.

This youthful gymnastic sports movie set in Australia ("Down Under") has the typical and predictable set up of an underperforming American gymnastic star outcome. With decent pacing, easy to follow storyline, this movie has a touched added bonus of actual extended edited gymnastic routines and moves that are exciting to watch that are usually omitted or excluded. There is also a nice addition of more rounded antagonistic characters. So overall, this fun, uplifting movie literally raises the bar of romance movies above average.