Spare Parts

The movie is based on a true story about the undocumented high school students from Arizona, who participate in underwater robotics competition and compete against top universities in the Nation. With limited budget, but with creative minds and a desire to win, they manage to build a decent robot and manage to impress the judges with their presentation. I am a robotics coach and I took my robotics team to watch this film. Definitely a must-watch especially if you are a coach, teacher, student , or parent. The students also enjoyed it a lot and got inspired. The movie also has very good soundtracks and has funny scenes.

Fantastic family friendly movie about perseverance and heart. Based on a true story about immigrant high school kids that form a robotics club in an attempt to get a leg up on their next journey in life. They face many obstacles: family, money, no papers, bad attitudes; but they have heart, will, & determination in spades! Lovely movie worth a rental. Fun for the whole family.

I love movies about science.

This was a very cool underdog story, similar to underdog stories found in sports movies, but this time, the sport is a science competition in which four Hispanic high schoolers dare to dream big by entering a robotics competition on a college level, and they end up surprising themselves most of all.

Based on a true story, when it comes to the competition itself the filmmakers got to keep it real. Their win was not perfect, but for me that's what made this the perfect underdogs become Victorious movie.

And for being his first semi-dramatic role, Gorge Lopez was the funniest I've ever seen in a picture. His name came first as the biggest star (despite having Jamie Lee Curtis and Marisa Tomei as his costars), but he was the supporting actor, cheering on these four boys as they achieve greatness beyond what their environment thought they could.

It's good to see and uplifting film, even better when it's about reality

Okay, I admit it. I'm a robotics nerd. I managed a high school robotics team for three years and watched on the side-lines while my son participated on another team for four years. So, of course I went to see the new movie "Spare Parts" about the Carl Hayden High School Robotics Team that participated in a college-level underwater robotics competition and beat M.I.T. I've met Coach Freddie, and I've attended robotics competitions and meetings at Carl Hayden High School. There was no way I was going to miss this movie.

Having said all that, here are the reasons ALL OF YOU should see this movie. If you live in Arizona, you should see this inspirational movie about something that happened in your own state. (Yes, sometimes good things do happen in Arizona.) If you are an educator, a parent, or anyone who works with kids, you should see this movie to remember what can happen when we inspire kids and give them a chance to show us what they can do. If you're a nerd or a techie - just go see it! It's a show with a lot of heart, the right amount of humor, and some good acting and writing, too.

What, you thought this movie was about a group of high school kids who put together a robot and competed against some of the best teams in the world? Well, it's really only partially about that.

In terms of acting, I thought everyone did great, although the kids came off as being some of the whitest Mexican kids I've ever seen. George Lopez fit the role well enough even though he really came off as more of a coach than a science teacher. Still, I'm glad to see him doing movies, as I never cared much for his TV show and I do like the guy, he has a good presence on the screen.

Filming and scene choreography and editing are all fairly well done. You won't get any of the scene jumping or hard to follow nonsense that you sometimes get from other movies. This one is put together nicely and the story flows well. It's inspiring.

Aside from the story, the movie spends a great deal of time commenting on the state of illegal immigration here in the U.S. To say that this doesn't belong in the review of the movie is wrong, since the movie is clearly about that. And how could it not be? With George Lopez and Marisa Tomei teaming up to make witty punches at conservative ideals for most of it. Demonizing conservatives in the movies has always been a favorite strategy of the left.

As I identify as conservative, and since the first punch has already been thrown, I'd like to take just a second to be clear about where most conservatives stand on immigration: not all of us believe that every illegal should be deported. We believe in a 2-step solution.

1. It is clear that Pandora's box has already been opened for the past 40 years. When you have children growing up in the U.S., in our schools, and being educated as U.S. citizens, then it's time to let those kids stay here and give them the citizenship that they should have. A selective and partial amnesty makes sense.

2. This solution must coincide with the effective sealing of the border, a task that no president or congress, Republican or Democrat, has been willing to do. That is the key element to solving this problem, and that is what most conservatives at the ground level feel needs to be done.

Some of the other reviews and comments have also indicated a few subtle skewings to the truth of the story. Apparently in actuality there were two teachers for the robotics club and neither of them were Latino. Their robot also finished third in the applied contest, which I find to be a strange change to the story as it would have been easy to simply tell it the way it was.

But all politics and subtle skewings aside, this was a very good movie. Inspiring and well made, and fun to watch. I recommend it.

Thank you for reading.