Arizona Summer

One on the most pathetic movies I've ever seen. But I enjoyed it.

Disclaimer: watched this on Showtime and could only take 75 minutes of this trash. A family movie?? The kids are not even cute. The older teen counselors attempt "rising" above a horrid script and story.

Lee Majors is a plain-out awful actor since he first entered a sound-stage. He does not disappoint as the camp director. The script goes off in all directions with no conclusions. The bullying by the camp counselors toward each other as well as the little campers is totally unrealistic. They would have been fired in a real life setting. (I know this as I was a camp assistant director.) A waste of time and money.

This is pretty much a kid's show. It's pleasant, but not strong in any way except for scenery. It's about a boy's summer camp in Arizona, but it's not obnoxious or crude. It's a mostly light-hearted, innocent fun. The movie follows two 8 year old friends and a small group of rivaling 16 year old camp leaders.

The background landscapes are great. The small lakes and hills are visually colorful and delightful to watch. However, the content and characters of the movie, while nice, can't quite match the scenery. It's a nice/OK movie, but maybe only worth watching if you're a young child.

OK, somewhat cheesy in spots and while not an edge of your seat, thrill a minute, definitely a good family movie. The bully and braggart gets his comeuppance in a comical if predictable manner. The adult actors seemed somewhat stilted but the youngsters did an excellent job. It will be interesting to see where their careers go from here. I went to see this movie in order to support a local Arizona writer/actor. As a native of Prescott, Arizona, it was great to see my hometown featured. Great scenic shots. Take your kids to see it. You could do much worse. It's not bad for an independent making his first film. I hope to see more locals get a chance.

8-year-old Brent (Gemini Barnett) is sent off, for the first time, to the summer camp where his big brother, 16-year old Brooke (Scott Clifton), is a Counsellor. Brooke is at the age where girls are very important, but Brent is just a precociously confident, fun-loving boy who is also a master of the yo-yo. Both brothers are troubled by the same bullying Counsellor, Mike (Shane Van Dyke), and young Brent revels in getting the better of him. The film also stars Lee Majors in a laid-back role as the summer camp's owner / manager, Bug Hall appears as a Counsellor, and David Henrie (think Selena Gomez's older brother, Justin, in the TV series "Wizards Of Waverly Place") plays a bullying kid who calls himself "Bad" (an early victim is his own real-life younger brother, Lorenzo Henrie, playing Jerry). The uneven nature of the movie explains why it didn't get proper big-screen distribution in the USA, where it ended up as a DVD release (in the dreaded "standard screen" format) over two years after being made.

Apart from a minor thread about father-son bonding, the story is roughly split between focussing on big brother Brooke's problems dealing with the bullying Mike while competing for the same girl, Donna (Michelle Holgate), and also focussing on the mischievous, cocksure younger brother Brent protecting other kids his age and standing up to bullying from whatever direction. There lies the fault of the film, by trying to be both a teen and a kid's movie, it simply doesn't work, at least in one direction as kids will get bored during the extended, slower-paced "teen" segments. There are some good fun moments and maybe it qualifies as a family movie, overall it is good-natured enough, but don't be surprised if the youngsters get restless in places. Incidentally, Gemini Barnett was probably 13 at the time of filming, and certainly doesn't convince as an 8-year-old, although otherwise his performance is one of the stronger features of the production.