Supercross

How good was Supercross? So good, that I was, quite literally, the only person in the movie theater. If that tells you anything.

Basically, this film was a rather poor attempt to showcase the popular sport of motocross through the experiences of two brothers, K.C. Carlyle (Steve Howey) and younger brother Trip Carlyle (Mike Vogel). K.C. plays things safe when he rides, driving “old school,” whereas Trip lives more on the edge, taking risks and frequent jumps. The filmmakers are completely oblivious as far as character development, so they choose to make these particular riding preferences identical to the brothers’ personalities as well. Trip is therefore a hotheaded, carefree risk taker in every aspect of his life, whereas K.C. is level-headed and responsible. K.C. and Trip eventually enter into a local motocross event, where they almost win but for a last second crash caused by Trip’s recklessness. Amazingly enough, a representative from Nami, a company that manufactures motorcycles and sponsors a Supercross team, is impressed with K.C.’s natural racing abilities and signs him onto the team. Because that’s precisely what large companies do—sign up complete unknowns with little to no racing experience to professional contracts. Unfortunately for K.C., his brother Trip is pissed at him for having the audacity to succeed, and his sponsors only want him to block for his obnoxious teammate, Rowdy Sparks (Channing Tatum). Trip, meanwhile, continues to behave recklessly and loses his truck in a rash decision to street race! The audience (which was again, just me) is captivated by this dramatic turn of events, which the filmmakers attempt to emphasize using a music montage where K.C. forlornly walks around the track, and a dejected Trip cleans pools by himself.

The movie squanders its one opportunity to create some competitive tension when Trip gets a ride through a privateer (non corporate sponsored team) and competes with his brother for a supercross victory. At this point I actually started to gain a bit of interest in the outcome, but the filmmakers didn’t want to choose between the two brothers and instead have Trip crash while protecting K.C. from an aggressive rider. When K.C. wins the race, his sponsors are furious that he has smeared their good name with a victory. I believe the direct quote from the manager is, “We’re finally being taken seriously and you’re jeopardizing it.” I can understand his point though, because after all, people just wouldn’t respect a team composed of winners.

The acting wasn’t all that horrible, and in fact, Mike Vogel did a pretty good job with the carefree Trip, who was easily the most likable character in the movie. There wasn’t a lot of good material to work with however, as the dialogue was choppy and absurd. I was also disappointed with how little racing is actually done in this movie (which is ostensibly about racing). Each race took up about 10 seconds of film time, so the remainder was filled with “drama.” The brief scenes that actually did feature races were shot well at the beginning and were decent for the final showdown, but unfortunately the filmmakers mistook dirt flying into the camera for good action in the majority of races.

I spent most of my time during Supercross looking at my watch and hoping that the hour and a half would go by as quickly as possible. Despite the brief flashes of meaningful drama and slight character development, this movie overlooked its main purpose and gave little attention to the very sport it was following. It really could have been much better.