354. Like Mike (2002)

Starring: Shad Moss, Jonathan Lipnicki, Morris Chestnut

Director: John Schultz

Running Time: 99 mins

Like Mike is an American film about a young orphan who joins a big NBA basketball club after he finds a pair of trainers in the lost and found, previously belonging to Michael Jordan, which give him the ability to play basketball brilliantly.

Obviously, with a film very oriented towards a much younger audience, the story and overall feel of the the movie is both obvious and extremely cheesy. I have to say I was hugely surprised this wasn’t made by Disney, because it was that sort of clichéd rags-to-riches story about a kid, that I felt I’d seen about ten million times before.

So the fact that this was an extremely predictable film, with very annoying dialogue and characters, made it a little less interesting to watch for me, as it was totally evident how every single scene would turn out.

The comedy in this film was also not the best. Being very cheesy and light (obviously because it’s for kids), it wasn’t actually that funny, which annoyed me a little, especially when the adults in this film started responding to the jokes made by this annoying little kids in a positive way.

Nonetheless, as a kids’ film, it’s pretty good, quite entertaining, uplifting and simple, but it is a bit of a struggle to watch if you want to get any true value out of it, so because of that, I’ll give it a 6.1.