Flyin' Ryan

This movie was filmed in and around my hometown of Kelseyville, CA (small farming community with around 4K people). To the points that many of these actors were terrible and had no experience... well, yeah. They went around and wrangled kids from the high school and asked if they wanted to be in a movie, or so my friends in the movie told me. What high schooler would turn down being in a movie? It was a great way to save money, a terrible way to make a movie. Reading through the cast list brought back some nostalgia but that was probably the most entertainment I got from the movie in any serious capacity. It's a great late night movie to drink and laugh at.

All the criticisms from other reviews are completely valid. It's a terrible movie. It's great entertainment. I'll give it 4 stars because someone went out there and made something despite painfully obvious budgetary limitations.

FLYIN' RYAN is awesome. Every kid wants to fly, especially when the bullies are after him. In this movie, Ryan (a red-haired kid) moves with his mom up to a country house owned by his great aunt. The house might be haunted. At least that is what Ryan's crazy old great aunt thinks.

But haunted houses don't bother Ryan as much as the group of local skateboard bullies. The lead of the bullies, Dirk, is a tough, but funny, short kid.

Dirk has it out for the new kid and he and his buddies hassle him and push him into the lake. A local girl, Nicki (she's really cute) becomes Ryan's friend.

When Dirk steals Ryan's dog. Ryan has to fly over the lake and rescue the dog at the goldmine.

THE GOLDMINE is AWESOME.

Funny and filmed in a small town with lots of animals, Flyin' Ryan is great for kids.

This film was so bad I almost want to give it a ten from all the belly laughing I did through it with the poor acting, bad dialog and special effects I could have done in my toilet.

Here's why I watched it: A friend of mine went to Family Video, approached the counter and asked, "what's the worst movie you have?" The clerk, informing my friend he had never been asked that before, suggested this film. A great suggestion - give this employee a raise. It's as bad as "The Wild and the Free".

The story is that of a boy who moves to a new town with his mother and must face a gang of tough-talking skaters. And he gets help fro ma little girl (the only good part of the film, Geneve Ruppert) and his dead great grandfather, Theodore McGoogan McGwire.

None of the actors have been in films before or since and maybe never will. They're awful. The camera-work looks like a home video most of the time. The "flying" effect is so poor that you can't help but laugh. And the children speak very strangely, with words like "basshole" and "magic transcends logic" (which I'll never hear a 12-year old say). I take back Geneve Ruppert being the only good part. One line from a character about coffee and butt-grabbing was also funny.

Don't rent this film unless you're planning on getting drunk or are intentionally looking to waste your time. Luckily, I was one of these two things.

Let me start by saying, that I had my doubts. I consider myself to be a film connoussier of sorts, however this move was so bad that I had to laugh. In fact, I think it is the best movie that has ever fit into the "so bad it's funny" category. From the bad acting to the ill-formed storyline, this movie tries desperately to make a lot of sense, but fails to do so in every respect. For example, the main character, Ryan, receives a pair of "Heely" shoes (the entire movie it seems, is one, overgrown add for those shoes) from his grandmother. BUT...they have not wheels, so poor Ryan still cannot fit in. That is when he somehow ends up at an isolated store (it is randomly on the shore of some lake), where a mysterious guy dressed in mid-ninteenth century dress from the American West tells him something anectdotal and then takes the wheels off of a model plane and gives them to Ryan. My two favorite scenes however, are the one where a girl randomly has two extra ATVs, and gives them to the bullies giving chase to Ryan, and the time that Ryans small dog is kidnapped by the bully and considered as a candidate for Guard Dog at the bully's cousins guard post at some random processing plant, which Ryan flies out of. If I has all the time in the world, I could not tell you how much this movie sucks, but it sucks really funny.

"Flyin' Ryan" has captured the hearts and attention of my children (ages 5 and 7 years), and as a mom, I couldn't be happier! Finally, a wholesome, magical movie where the good guy wins by standing up for what he believes in.

I fell in love with the character of Ryan, who is about the nicest, most authentic kid you're going to meet on screen. (Who is this Andy Weiss? He reminds me of a young Ron Howard). Of course he gets harassed by the local bully, Dirk Cooper and his skateboarding gang of middle-school thugs who so typically just want to give Ryan a hard time.

I love the way Ryan gains his confidence throughout the movie to finally face the bully, and by doing so, is able to fly on his magical pair of heeleys. He flies over the entire town, a beautiful lake (that was well photographed) AND a beautiful girl, Nicki, who becomes Ryan's new best friend. How nice that they can share a genuine, wholesome friendship and actually LIKE each other without all the implied sexuality and romance you usually see in movies.

This movie gets back to the basics for me and touches on many core values: good wins over evil, faith over fear, integrity over deceitfulness, and as the theme song states, "just believe". By believing, Ryan takes a great step of courage and a huge leap into the air when he goes flying off to rescue his dog and stand up to the bully. Granted, the special effects may look less than spectacular compared to the major motion pictures, but for my kids, Ryan is their hero, and he flies high above those bigger-budget movies.

I highly recommend this movie for young children who want to believe again...in magic, in flying, and ultimately, in themselves!