Zoom : L'Académie des super-héros

My kids thought it was a great show. They ran around for the next week pretending to be really fast/invisible/strong.

I wasn't very impressed. As ever the effects were adequate, even the story was good. The character development was lacking and the acting was wooden.

The movie has a couple of guys who should be really funny; Tim Allen & Chevy Chase. They just weren't made use of in a funny way. Courtenay Cox was funnier and for her that's saying something.

The climax was anticlimactic but I think this links back to poor character development. We just didn't get to know the bad guy enough to really care about him.

Remember how in the 70's you could tell the production value of a film by how often you saw the boom mike fall into view of the actors- well thanks to boom operator Darryl Purdy and the laziness of Peter "I apparently never watch the dailies" Hewitt, you can see the boom mike fall into view 3 separate times. That said allow me to point out that the cute little girl who acts as badly as her speech impediment can't save the film in the same way that the Brady Bunch would not have been popular with a the show devoted to Cindy Brady.

There was so much wasted possibility showing us the back ground of these characters the over use of montage and collage editing would not have been needed.

Also the film has three apparent villains in the film except none of them are bad and we never know why two of them are necessarily considered bad- but that's o.k. because the story was written by someone with ADD or perhaps short term memory loss as significant as the character in "Memento".The story has no continuity- Tim Allen hates the kids he plays with the kids he feels sorry for the kids no wait he doesn't understand why he's there to train the kids_ FOR THE LOVE OF GOD MAKE UP YOUR MIND!!! Nothing in this movie fit together- and in the end the super evil villain (whom we have waited 90 minutes to see) gets a scolding in the last 6 minutes of the movie and then it's over.

Didn't Peter Hewitt read the script before filming oh no wait this is the same guy that gave us "Bogus Journey"- you remember- the sequel that ended the Bill and Ted franchise. Not to mention the Garfield Movie.. a comic strip so revered for 30 years they made it into a Saturday morning cartoon but the movie that couldn't keep the audiences attention for 90 minutes (success based solely on a lack of other children films during its release and parents who grew up with Garfield the previous generation)...WHY DOES PETER HEWITT GET WORK, why?? Afterall,it is the directors responsibility for many things including having a working script and a vision before starting a project ( the exceptions being Andy Warhol who's audience base was too stoned to notice and Francis Ford Coppola with "Apocalypse Now" who had several million dollars to keep his dream afloat.

Peter Hewitt should be ashamed of himself for this crap.

"Zoom" is a fun movie for two audiences. It's a comedy sci-fi flick that was made for kids, with a far-out allusion to the super-heroes group from the age of comic books. The humor appeals a little bit to we older movie buffs. But of more interest and entertainment for the older movie crowd are the two characters, Dr. Grant and General Laraby.

Chevy Chase is a hoot as the government scientist, Dr. Grant, and Rip Torn is very funny in his frequent role as a cantankerous commander of some sort from films of the past. Tim Allen and the younger cast who play the super heroes are okay and should amuse the younger of the young crowd who follow the superheroes. Of course, once they reach about eight years of age, the kids are no longer dazzled by these more comical, kid-friendly characters. They're ready for the tougher, rougher, more daring super hero flicks. They want the "real thing" like the adults. You know, Spiderman, Batman, Superman, Wolverine and Captain America.

My grandkids, the youngest ones anyway, get a kick out of flicks like this.

I rented this movie for my cousin, it was his pick and we watched it as soon as we got home, he loved it! I seriously was expecting this big travesty of a film with the way the users are talking about it on IMDb, but I have to honestly say that it wasn't THAT bad, come on, it's a kid's movie, what did you expect? Citizen Kane? For the kids it had a fun plot and cool visuals, yeah, the story was a little lame, but as adults we should know that this movie was not meant for us, so I am going to judge it on being a children's movie.

These kids all have super powers, but don't know how to use them effectively, so the program of Zoom is going to help them become super heroes with a man who was a former celebrity type of hero who is now a has-been. They enjoy being kids with each other and learn how to use their powers in the right ways and must destroy Conor, another former super hero who went bad. Together they all must learn to a team and also a family.

Like I said, for a kid's movie, it's cute and it really wasn't a BAD movie, I've seen worse, believe me! So don't use most of these comments as your judgment factor, see how the kids react and really judge for yourself, it's a fun little flick that I wouldn't watch again, but I think it will be a fun small classic somewhere down the road for the children.

5/10

The soundtrack having 5 smash mouth songs really fits the tone and overall quality of the movie.