Supercross: The Movie - I almost walked out

I went to see “Supercross: The Movie” this afternoon. Why? Because I had to see it in order to give a credible critique of the film. Here it is.

First off, the title is a dead giveaway that zero creative brain cells were expended in the making of this “film”. It stands as a warning to all who seek cinematic entertainment or even a primer in the sport of supercross. That warning is “Stay Away. Nonsense Inside.”

The movie starts with a worthless title sequence that does nothing to introduce the plot or the characters, but does a lot to hype up supercross as it’s presented by Clear Channel. It also makes the viewer believe that the movie is actually about supercross. It’s not.

That may come as a surprise to you; it certainly surprised me. After all the hype and speculation, it turns out the movie is really about the “evil” factories versus the “righteous” privateers. Supercross barely figures into the movie at all, although they talk about it enough.

Why does a movie about supercross start off with guys riding in the desert? Why, in a movie supposedly about supercross, is the first race a SUPERMOTO race? Why, in a movie that calls itself “Supercross: The Movie”, spend so much time on outdoor tracks like Glen Helen and Piru MX?

Last month’s Racer X Illustrated featured one of the many articles about this movie, this one penned by David Pingree, who was also in the movie and received payment from the producers for his role. The article states that the producer of the film is a motocross fan. If that truly is the case, then he must be one of those guys call themselves fans but don’t really know anything about the sport. I say that because of the movie’s schizophrenic focus; it doesn’t know if it wants to cater to the diehards or to the newbies. Ultimately it doesn’t matter, because the film fails miserably at both.

I’m not really going to get into details, I’ll leave that to the other reviewers. But my “favorite” part of the film was a sequence where the brothers were watching a televised report featuring the factory’s obnoxious star. The older brother said something like “This is stupid, I’m outta here.” And that was my feeling exactly… I was ready to walk out on this movie. But I stuck it out until the end, the Vegas supercross finale, and left as soon as the credits started to roll.

My verdict? It sucks, but your kids (10 and under) will probably dig it. It’s every bit as cheesy as those “supercross jerseys” that CCE sells at every supercross.