Akeelah and the Bee (2006)

Laurence Fishburne
Keke Palmer
Angela Bassett
Curtis Armstrong

Directed by Doug Atchison

Plot: A precocious eleven-year-old girl, Akeelah Anderson, from south Los Angeles, is discovered to have a talent for words. In spite of the objections of her mother Wanda, Akeelah enters a spelling contest. Her gift takes her to compete in the National Spelling Bee, the most famous competition of its kind in the world. On the way, she is helped by a forthright, mysterious teacher, Dr. Larabee, and other members of her community.

Review: As with a lot of the movies I watch, I knew very little about this film. I did see the trailer and it intrigued me. The world of the spelling bee is sad to me. You have these brilliant kids, who are busting their butt to accomplish and incredible task, but is usually tainted by the crazy parents and stress that goes along with it. This movie is about this world, but not in the way I thought.

The story to this movie is fairly basic, but I still found it really good. All of the performances are outstanding. The little star Keke Palmer was great. If nothing else, her flawless ability to pull off some of the words they had to spell was impressive. ( I know it is a movie, but it was still impressive) Laurence Fishburne gives a great performance as well. He was basically Morpheus from the Matrix, but in the normal world. It really worked nicely. I was glad to see him in this out of the ordinary film. The remaining cast members were all great. My biggest props goes out to all the other kids in the film. Remembering dialogue is one of the hardest parts of acting, but when you add children who have to memorize words that most adults don't know, it's even more difficult. I really loved this movie, but had one major issue, I didn't know half the words and realized that I wasn't the genius I thought I was. Make sure to check this movie out, you won't be disappointed.

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