Like Mike -- PG
Starring: Bow Wow, Morris Chestnut
Directed by: John Schultz
Showing: Showplace East 11
In the spirit of sports movies, director John Schultz created a child friendly basketball movie full of fantasy and humor. While the concept is cute, and every young aspiring basketball player's dream, Michael Jordan is nowhere to be seen in the movie. It kind of takes away from the title.
It all begins when Calvin (Bow Wow) stumbles across a pair of sneakers with the initials "M.J." inside of them. He assumes they belonged to Michael Jordan and wishes that the shoes would make him "like Mike." These magic shoes, amazingly enough, do make Calvin like Mike and earn him a spot on the local NBA team's roster with one of his favorite players, Tracy (Morris Chestnut). Chestnut makes for a good basketball player, though it's not much of a change from his usual football player role ("The Best Man" and "Boyz 'N The Hood"). It's cute and refreshing to see Chestnut in a child's movie, and his chemistry with Bow Wow can't help but make them look like the two really did hit it off.
Adding to the long list of adorable things in the movie is Calvin's friend Murph (Jonathan Lipnicki). He's just as sweet and cute now as he was back in "Jerry Maguire."
While the movie lacks an actual appearance of Michael Jordan, it does include basketball greats ºAllen Iverson, Chris Weber, Karl Malone and Jason Kidd. The outtakes with these players at the end of the movie are worth the wait through the credits.
Bow Wow, who apparently wishes to drop the "Lil'" from his name, just may surprise people with his ability to act sweet and innocent in the movie. Off screen he's busy rapping about puppy love and how everyone wants to take him home. It is true, however, that after this movie little girls will want to take Bow Wow home while their moms and older sisters will be wanting to take home Morris Chestnut. The absence of Michael Jordan definitely knocks off points for this sports flick, but overall it's a good time.
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