Who Writes This Stuff?

Whip It was meh. I was pretty bummed too. It looked so good from the trailers. It isn’t bad, but it doesn’t really offer anything original or even very interesting.

Don't let her cut your dick off.

Whip It, Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut, follows Bliss Cavendar (Ellen Page), a spunky teenage beauty queen who falls in love with the riot grrl sport of roller derby against the wishes of her crazy pageant mom (Marcia Gay Harden). Along the way she finds herself a scene kid boyfriend (Landon Pigg) and she does  battle with Iron Maven (Juliette Lewis).

First off, there’s something I need to tell you. I’m afraid of Ellen Page. She scares me. Not in a good way at all. She really gives me the creeps. I think it’s because of Hardy Candy (in which she plays a psychopathic little girl who tries to castrate a guy for the entire movie). Anyone who saw that movie knows what I’m talking about. I saw it and now I can’t shake the image. She’s also got that little girl thing going. She looks like a little kid and little kids are creepy (she’s 23). I know she’s tiny. I know she’s cute. But you can’t tell me you don’t see it in those eyes. Those are the eyes of a girl who waits until you’re sleeping and then cuts you up. Just look at them! They’re right up there ^! They’re like an abyssal void you could fall into and then float for an eternity in darkness. I’m telling you, Juno will eat your children. She’s evil. Stay away from her.

Besides Ellen Page totally giving me the heebeegeebees, Whip It suffers from a serious follow the leader complex. This recent trend of movies about cool hipster teens with eclectic musical tastes and thrift store wardrobes is getting bland. The obligatory “You like <obscure band> too?” scene has become a tired cliche. The one in this movie is so clunky that my crew and I laughed out loud in the theater.

The story is coherent, but totally predictable. Whip It is basically a standard coming of age sports movie. Not much new here. I’ll give them points for the roller derby angle. I haven’t seen that done before. There’s a mildly interesting underwater sex scene too. Very little else is worth paying $10 to see. The gags mostly fall flat. The action sequences range from uninspired to pathetic. The characters are typical stock. There’s the controlling mother, the cool best friend, the bitchy girl, the dopey dad – more run of the mill. The ending is a little bit different for a sports movie, but by the time it comes around it just isn’t enough to make the rest of the movie memorable.

My recommendation – check this out on video.