Thursday, July 10, 2014

Movie Review: 16-Love

Title: 16-Love
Genre: romance, teen, sports, chick flick, family
My Rating: **
Official Rating: PG (for mild thematic elements and brief innuendo)
Age Group: 14+
Summary: Ally is a tennis star in high school and looking at a few matches that will lead her to becoming pro. Her life is entirely tennis and she's good. But when she sprains her ankle and is forced to take a break from the one thing she's been doing for as long as she can remember, she finds something different. A life. A real, regular, teenage life.
So how does the guy she's coaching for his own tennis match fit into all of this?

Word of Warning
  • Girls wear short skirts and tank-tops (some are revealing, others not), mostly for their tennis matches. Ally's friend is constantly wearing short shorts or skirts.
  • A boy who is addicted to caffeine is nicknamed "Red Bull" but that's never explained as being related to an actual drink.
  • A guy spends a good amount of time practicing without his shirt on. Girls are clearly attracted to this and one wants a picture with him. Later, we see a slow-mo of him getting out of a pool.
  • The father is inconsiderate of his daughter's actual desires and pushes her to do tennis because he doesn't want her to fail like he did.
  • The girl disobeys her father at her friend's urging. Later, she hides things from him, ultimately outright lying to him.
  • There is significant taunting between rivals and it's not friendly taunting.
  • A scene intended to be comical involves a ball-boy getting hit off scene by a ball. There is a sort of shriek/yell, and the emergency truck drives by. The announcer casually tells everyone to go back to their game, the ball-boy just got on the wrong end of a serve by a famous player. We hear nothing about him after the truck is gone, nor do we see anything.
  • A girl badly sprains her ankle and can't walk.
  • A girl and her love interest share ice cream.
  • A guy remarks that a pro sells his own line of underwear and "they're extremely comfortable."
  • A girl forcefully kisses a guy who looks very shocked and unhappy but doesn't put much effort into pulling away. He is also assumed to be more or less taken by a different girl when this happens.
  • A girl neglects her friends and family, resulting in anger and friends abandoning her.
  • The mother tells her daughter, "All you are is a sum of your choices."
  • The daughter ignores her father's orders and does what she likes, hoping he'll eventually agree that she's right.
  • A few passionate kisses, almost all of which are in the last five minutes of the movie.
  • The cliche of the daughter being misunderstood by her parents, doing what she wants finally, and them realizing how wrong they were and then agreeing with her.
My Thoughts
Honestly, it wasn't too bad for a chick flick. The thing that was the most irritating was all the tennis scenes in which nothing but tennis happened. It might have been a lot more enjoyable if I knew tennis or was interested in it.
But all things considered, the story was a nice (albeit cliche) one and just unique enough not to make me feel like I was watching something I'd already seen. The comical characters were a great addition, there just often enough to make sure the audience didn't become annoyed.
My biggest problems with it were honestly the over-told story of a daughter being misunderstood and then doing what she wants and the parents realizing how wrong they were (what kind of message does that send?) and the long tennis scenes.
So my star count is based less on objectionable content this time and more on boredom.