It's been years since the Curtis family lost their husband and father Raymond in a flying accident as part of his job as a pilot. His son, Sammy, misses him and works on model planes with his friend Mickey until, that is, he sees some boys on a skateboard and gets himself a new hobby. After hurting himself he is ready to give up when he gets a mysterious package from a man called Zeno a skateboard with mysterious powers. Sammy enters a skateboard contest using the power of the board; meanwhile his mother struggles to pay the mortgage and faces losing the house.
Not having seen the original Skateboard Kid film I'm not sure if there is a connection between the two or if they are two pretty separate stories doing basically the same thing. Anyway, the plot here sees Sammy getting a board that talks like KITT from a man who could not possibly be relating in any way to his dead father. Needless to say, with the house on the line and big money available for the winner of a skateboarding contest, Sammy steps up although I won't spoiling it by saying whether or not he wins or learns to find his inner strength! I don't want to judge this by adult standards but, in the same regard, I don't believe that a kids film can be cr*p just because it is aimed at kids. Sadly that is the case here, the film seems to be entirely based on the skateboarding craze and the rest of the plot has been hacked off from a million other films it really is that generic!
The plot is dumb and it knows it it never knows when to stop with an idea and to keep good taste, instead it adds bad idea to bad idea and just gets increasingly stupid. This is aimed too high for young children and I doubt very much if 7-11 year olds would accept this as their entertainment for the evening. Baring in mind that this was made in the mid 1990's, the effects are hilariously bad I know the budget must not have been much but surely it could do better than this rubbish. The skateboarding action is pretty average as well, there are few good moves and most of it is basic stuff. The funniest thing in the film is Sammy skateboarding his body double is at least 20 and must be about a foot and a half taller than him, the change over between the two is obvious and is so badly handled as to be hilarious.
On top of that, the acting is roundly bad. The kids are all cute 'gee wiz, mom' style performances are felt like nails being dragged over a board for most of the time. Wallace-Stone is suited to this type of film and she is as wholesome and non-sexual as she often is. Support is OK from Davidson but mostly the cast are all pretty poor. Director Stevens gives himself a role and all I can say is that I hope he doesn't still have his hair like that. In fairness it was nice to see him, he has had a very varied career considering that this is on his CV!.
Overall this is a bad film with little to recommend in it. The production values are very low, giving rise to many clunky effects and share lazy errors, the acting is poor even for a kids movie and the story is corny and obvious from the very start. I know this is a kids movie but that does not excuse it being bad. This was aimed at the older kid market of preteens if you tried to get the 10 year olds I know to watch this rubbish it would spark a riot.
