Figure libre

Katelin Kingsford, an Olympic hopeful figure skater wants to train with a Russian figure skating coach. In order to go to the school that Natasha is at, Katelin gets a scholarship playing on the girls hockey team.

Watching a sequence of cute Disney movies, watching the second one about women's ice skating, another one of those about teen resilience with cute messages at the end, I have a soft spot for those water with sugar films from the early 2000s... It doesn't subtract anything, although they add in short, they are nice to pass the time... Extremely forced ending, and female rivalry still bothers me in these films... Cute and simple...

Yes, it was a sweet theme, that girls can choose for themselves who they want to be. And, it's always great to see a movie about figure skating, a sport that can always use more attention from commercial sponsors. But let's be real. No figure skater would ever be so stoooopid as to believe that she could use hockey skates to do a double toe jump. Since when do hockey skates have toe picks? Duh, duh, duh. Why couldn't they have had a more realistic movie about girls and sports? Disney has such a massive reach. I wish the producers had combined their commercial interests with a greater shot of reality. That would have been an entertaining *and* realistic movie. Not so much to ask, is it?

The movie was good, especially because of Spencer, i mean he is so hot! but i thought that jordin hinson didn't act that well. She was really fake and her voice was all high-pitched and stuff. So basically, the whole movie, i felt like shutting her up, but other than that, everything else was really good. :) I also liked Hollywood, she was pretty enough to make the lead. Which comes back to my point, what was that Barbie blond doing in the main role anyway? Can she actually skate, because is she can't, then Disney cast the wrong girl. They actually lost money because the reception was not as good as they expected, so they couldn't immediately make it for DVD, i bet it's because of her...

Though I found this movie very cute and had a good story line... it totally distorted what figure skating is all about. Many people think that figure skating is a independent sport which it is as you are not on a team but skaters tend to encourage each help each other and give others tips to succeed when they share ice time. There may be enemies between people but it's like that with every sport. The image they portray about the competition, coaches and friendships between figure skaters is simply inaccurate.

This is not an Academy Award nominee, but it was an enjoyable movie that I could watch with my kids. While I admit that the main actress' tears were not great (I thought that part was forced myself), I basically enjoyed the movie, so much that, because I had missed the very beginning the first time around, I watched the whole movie all over again to see how it began. It was an enjoyable escapist movie that we could all get into. Plus I love figure skating. I especially liked that the brother and sister could finally "play together nice." OK, I'm a mom, but still I thought this was a nice flick. Given that it's a kid's movie, there wasn't any blood and guts, but there was nice tension and an interesting choice for the main character to make. Various parts of it also made me laugh remembering the movie "The Cutting Edge." Toe Pick!!!