Bandslam (2009)
The reason the 2010 remake of The Karate Kid did not work was because a remake had just been made the year before…it’s called Bandslam. Unfortunately, a self-sabotaging Disney Channel Original Movie-styled trailer in the mould of “music Superbad” meets “90s Miramax voiceover” exists.
Strong structure allows this movie to soar more than it probably should. The richness of tournament settings in movies work because the expectations of what’s supposed to happen are set from the beginning. A bunch of different groups who engage in the same activity are going to compete against each other in order to win a Macguffin-esque prize…think Bloodsport, Pitch Perfect, Yu-Gi-Oh!, or The Karate Kid. For this movie, a bunch of bands are going to compete in a band competition — great, easy to follow, thank you!
The Gaelan Connell character (Will Burton — if only they had the foresight to call him Will Barton) holds his own, but the cast is anchored by Aly Michalka, Vanessa Hudgens, and Lisa Kudrow, who all vacillate between the deadpan-style comedy and the necessary melodrama needed in a coming-of-age story like this. I am not sure if Lisa Kudrow binge-watched episodes of Gilmore Girls in preparation for this role, but her performance as both Mom and Best Friend strikes an effective balance.
The slowness of the first several minutes is neatly swept aside once the story picks up in Lodi, New Jersey (like that cross-country trip at the beginning of 1984’s The Karate Kid). But it is offset by the strong introduction of the characters played by Aly Michalka and Vanessa Hudgens. Their characterizations are immediately fleshed out in each of their first dialogue-heavy scenes, another sign of strong table-setting in the story. Here is how the Sa5m character (Vanessa Hudgens) is introduced in the movie: sipping on a Coke through a Twizzler straw (my teeth feel caked in plaque), while somehow miraculously reading in a very raucous cafeteria, she answers Will’s question sardonically with “Texas high school football big.” He’s aspirationally goofy; she’s cynical. I really wonder if they’ll get together.
As for Charlotte Barnes (Aly Michalka), “Hey, good samaritan. Do you like kids? It’s a simple question. Of course you do…C’mon, we don’t have a lot of time.” Quite a call to adventure to kickstart the driving force of the movie: the friendship between Will and Charlotte. While Michalka does a lot of the heavy lifting, the fizzle-pop chemistry between the two characters is undeniably charming.
The pacing is brilliant. By the twelfth minute, the premise of the movie and the introductions of all the major characters are set. The halfway point of the movie has the predictable, but breezy, rift between Will and Sa5m. At the two-thirds point, Will and Charlotte have their own blowout argument to set the finale into motion. And a solid twenty minutes in the final act is spent on delivering the band competition that is constantly hyped up throughout the story. The filmmakers even include a “getting the gang together” sequence (akin to D2: The Mighty Ducks) where I learned none of the additional band members’ names, but felt as though they all had meaningful scenes.
Now the soundtrack. The movie is carefully surrounded by music in the best possible way. The modern rock bands (The Burning Hotels, The Daze) sync sweetly with the older drop-ins (David Bowie, The Velvet Underground, Shack). The music succeeds in the time-capsulation efforts where the nods to Myspace, early YouTube, and cell phone videos simply do not. The references to such technology are actually comedically endearing…a recipe for nostalgia-induced content.
Overall, Bandslam is composed with a lot of care and intelligence. It just has to be dug out from beneath the glossy Disney-ified disgrace of its trailer.
Lastly, some comments and questions:
- Why doesn’t Will play a single instrument in the movie?
- Should Vanessa Hudgens have been given the opportunity to trial Zendaya’s take as Mary Jane Watson in The Amazing Spider-Man series of movies?
- Basher’s smile when Will decides to take up crowd surfing
