{"id":4102,"date":"2023-03-28T14:16:50","date_gmt":"2023-03-28T14:16:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/otherpeoplesmovies.com\/?p=4102"},"modified":"2023-03-28T15:40:02","modified_gmt":"2023-03-28T15:40:02","slug":"champions-2023-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/otherpeoplesmovies.com\/index.php\/2023\/03\/28\/champions-2023-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Champions (2023) Review"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Ernie Hudson and Woody Harrelson in Champions<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Director Bobby Farrelly follows in his older brother and frequent co-director\u2019s footsteps with his own uplifting and good-natured solo feature film effort. Like Peter\u2019s Oscar-winning Green Book, <\/em>Bobby\u2019s Champions <\/em>unabashedly focuses on the best of humanity and aims to please its audience with its warm-hearted and intentionally simplistic design. Also like Green Book, <\/em>it\u2019s an easy and vulnerable target that some audiences will pick apart while other audiences will just as easily fall for its abundance of sweetness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Woody Harrelson stars as a minor-league basketball assistant coach who loses his job due to his passionate and temperamental nature. He drowns his sorrows with alcohol shortly afterward, then gets busted for driving under the influence. The judge gives him two options: he can go to jail or he can do ninety days of community service by coaching a basketball team comprised of mentally handicapped players. Much to his initial chagrin, Harrelson agrees to do the community service. As anyone can surely guess, he finds himself loving the task and his innocently affable team of underdogs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Needless to say, Champions <\/em>is an updated variation of The Bad News Bears <\/em>that features another reluctant, embittered, and flawed main character who finds himself and his true path to happiness in the unlikeliest of places and with the unlikeliest of people. There is not a single story beat that cannot be predicted very early on in the highly formulaic film. I have not seen the Spanish film Campeones <\/em>on which the film is based, but it\u2019s undeniable that Champions <\/em>is a wholly American film that features indisputably American values while utilizing a blueprint that an endless list of American movies has already followed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That being said, it\u2019s quite difficult to not ultimately be won over by the film. The characters are all fresh and well-developed and the film\u2019s presentations of the basketball games are well-choreographed and engrossing\u2014despite the fact that their outcomes can be called long before they\u2019re over. Champions <\/em>provides proof that formulaic films can still be enjoyable and enlightening if they are well executed and if they don\u2019t forget to add layers of identifiable and honest humanity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s also noteworthy that the film\u2019s humor is mostly harmless and well-timed. Farrelly, who, alongside his brother, previously co-directed and co-wrote such hilarious and edgy-yet-heartful R-rated classics as There\u2019s Something About Mary <\/em>and Me, Myself & Irene, <\/em>is no stranger to comedy. There are a couple of his typical gross-out moments that might make the audience cringe, but his humor, this time around, is overall toned down to be less offensive and more family-friendly. There are one or two select moments that slightly cross the line and are patronizing towards and exploitative of the mentally handicapped characters, but it\u2019s mostly clear that Farrelly and his collaborators had the good intention of making a movie that was primarily against such qualities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The film\u2019s primary positive attribute is its extraordinarily talented ensemble cast that affably brings the characters to sparkling life. Harrelson is, quite simply, at his best. His character\u2019s humorous and emotionally moving arc is wholly lifelike and appears to be effortless. He is one of today\u2019s most engaging and naturalistic talents to grace screens of any size.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kaitlin Olson is equally effortless and likable as Harrelson\u2019s love interest and the sister of one of his team\u2019s players. Ernie Hudson reminds us that he is severely under-used in a supporting role out of which he makes the absolute most. Kevin Inannucci exhibits sincere and wholly lovable integrity as a key member of Harrelson\u2019s team. Madison Tevlin steals the show as another teammate, successfully, confidently, and magnetically delivering the majority of the film\u2019s most memorable comedic zingers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Champions <\/em>is designed to be a feel-good crowd-pleaser and it overall succeeds in its aspirations. The audience I saw it with applauded intermittently throughout and gave it a good cheer when the final credits rolled. It could have been a tad smarter and more original, but such criticisms are merely an afterthought and, surprisingly enough, shouldn\u2019t affect one\u2019s enjoyment while watching it. Champions <\/em>is a movie about inclusivity and tolerance that wants to make you happy both while you\u2019re watching it and after it\u2019s over. Its innocent and charming nature makes it next to impossible for one not to react to it in the way that it so clearly desires.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

GRADE: B+<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Director Bobby Farrelly follows in his older brother and frequent co-director\u2019s footsteps with his own uplifting and good-natured solo feature film effort. Like Peter\u2019s Oscar-winning Green Book, Bobby\u2019s Champions unabashedly focuses on the best of humanity and aims to please its audience with its warm-hearted and intentionally simplistic design. Also like Green Book, it\u2019s an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4103,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/otherpeoplesmovies.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/otherpeoplesmovies.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/otherpeoplesmovies.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/otherpeoplesmovies.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/otherpeoplesmovies.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4102"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/otherpeoplesmovies.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4105,"href":"https:\/\/otherpeoplesmovies.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4102\/revisions\/4105"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/otherpeoplesmovies.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/otherpeoplesmovies.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/otherpeoplesmovies.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/otherpeoplesmovies.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}