Akeelah and the Bee

< Previous Trailer  |   Add to My Scrapbook  |   Next Trailer >
Akeelah and the Bee

74% Liked It
liked it

Akeelah and the Bee

Angela Bassett, Jeff Marlow, Keke Palmer, Laurence Fishburne, Sara Niemietz, Curtis Armstrong, Julito McCullum

Akeelah Anderson is a precocious 11-year-old girl from south Los Angeles with a gift for words. Despite the objections of her mother Tanya, Akeelah enters various spelling contests, for which she is t...( read more  read more... )utored by the forthright Dr. Larabee; her principal Mr. Welch and the proud residents of her neighborhood. Akeelah's aptitude earns her an opportunity to compete for a spot in the Scripps National Spelling Bee and in turn unites her neighbors who witness the courage and inspiration of one amazing little girl.

Id: 10893258

Do you want to see this movie?

My Friends Said...

Akeelah and the Bee Recent Reviews

Register or sign-in to see your friends' reviews !

Recent Reviews

Akeelah and the Bee Recent Reviews
  • organgrinder136
    August 17, 2009
    organgrinder136
    like the karate kid but with spelling...
  • jamilyn0276
    July 6, 2009
    jamilyn0276
    Akeelah And The Bee is the story of a very smart 11 year old girl from South Los Angeles, and her journey to the Script's National Spelling Bee.
    The story was predictable, but that is what I expected from this type of story. Maybe it was my inner nerd shinning through, while I w...( read more)as watching it.What can I say, I have been known to sit and watch The Script's National Bee on ESPN, and few can beat me at Scrabble. So, I really enjoyed this movie.
    I have always been an Angela Bassett fan. She is a phenomenal actress. Keke Palmer did a wonderful job playing Akeelah in this film. It was nice to see "Booger" Curtis Armstrong all grown up, playing the principle. Not many films can you say..." Damn that Laurence Fishburn for making me cry."
    Akeelah And The Bee is a good family film. There is something to enjoy for all ages.
  • JeT0425
    June 13, 2009
    JeT0425
    I have never enjoyed a PG-rated film like I have this one. This may be classified as a "kid's film" but I disagree. It's such a great and inspiring film. I have never been that excited in a movie since I watched Seabiscuit. Keke Palmer does a terrific job, especially for her bein...( read more)g so young. She is the movie. I was also happy to see Fishburne and Bassett reunite for the third time in this film. They are always wonderful, but are better when in the same scenes for most of the movie. I recommend this movie to everyone because it truly is inspiring, especially if you come from a lower-class, low-income family like Akeelah. She is a strong girl and it shows in the movie. She has great integrity and the most powerful scene is when she reads the quote off of Fishburne's office wall. "Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate, but that we are powerful beyond measure."
  • MovieGeek13
    March 19, 2009
    MovieGeek13
    It follows a formulaic plot structure, but I really liked how it explored the cultural and social divisions amongst classes in Los Angeles.
  • EarthlyAlien
    July 14, 2008
    EarthlyAlien
    Dr. Larabee: "Where do you think big words come from?
    Akeelah: People with big brains?"

    11-year old Akeelah Anderson (Keke Palmer) has a gift for words. It's probably genetic: her dad (who was shot to death when she was a little girl) played scrabble, probably with...( read more) expertise. Ever since her dad's death, she, and her two brothers, have been kept alive by her overworking mother (Angela Bassett). The gift for words isn't exactly a blessing to Akeelah. She usually gets A's in her spelling tests; A's she would quickly hide out of embarrassment. Crenshaw, her South L.A. public school, isn't really the school where you can brag your intellectual achievements. Mediocrity pervade the educational system; bullies would terrorize those who achieve or mock at any notion that someone is excelling in something.

    Photobucket

    Akeelah and the Bee is the story of Akeelah's journey from being the closet gifted speller to the champion of the Scripps Spelling Bee in Washington D.C.. The story isn't exactly original. You've seen it before, in many different shapes. The Sister Act films showed unlikely chorale singers succeed to impress non-believers. Director Ron Howard has a few of these films under his belt (most of which would win numerous awards): A Beautiful Mind, Cinderella Man. Like all the cited films, Akeelah would have to face all the adversities (her lower middle-class neighbourhood, her bullies, her rapper-wannabe brother, the Korean-American rival) in her life to reach her goals.

    Of course, she doesn't do it alone. She gets help from university professor Dr. Larabee (Laurence Fishburne) who is also hiding a painful tragedy in his life. In one of the spelling bee competitions, she meets Javier (J. R. Villareal), overly friendly spelling bee competitor and Latino lover-in-the-making. It's all very formulaic which might be the reason why it's also quite harmless as opposed to the other fictional spelling bee films released after the hit doc Spellbound (Jeffrey Blitz, 2002). Akeelah and the Bee seems very safe and trite in comparison.

    Everything falls into place. Director Doug Atchison knows his material is Hallmark-quality fluff and directs it as such. The film looks satisfyingly polished. There's an abundance of generic preachiness; the film quotes a lot from Mandela and Dr. Larabee seems persistent on incorporating greatness in the simplicity of spelling and word deconstruction. It all feels very fuzzy and nice. The niceness is upped by Keke Palmer's surprisingly good performance (if a little girl upstages Fishburne and Bassett, you do know she's special or that the screenplay has been unfairly underwritten for the supporting cast).

    Overall, Akeelah and the Bee is embarrassingly cute - spelling bees, little kids stealing kisses from little girls, whole neighbourhoods (the gang-banger neighbourhood, at that) rallying behind the unlikely champion. Atchison seems to want something deeper from the entire bee business, but his sugar-coated confection can barely rise beyond its genre to say anything out of the ordinary. Still very much worthy.
  • casagrande
    November 6, 2009
    casagrande
    Filme com uma história previsível, mas nem por isso deixa de ser muito bom.

    O mais interessante são as lições que as crianças dão aos adultos e a diversidade étnica e social dos personagens.

    Dica importante para quem gosta de assistir filmes é desconsiderar os títulos tradu...( read more)zidos, algumas vezes de muito mau gosto.
  • iggie461
    October 29, 2009
    iggie461
    Girly film, teen girl film....
  • iamJessica
    September 7, 2009
    iamJessica
    Nothing about this movie was unpredictable.
  • jxxx84
    September 2, 2009
    jxxx84
    Recommended by ElaineJoy1
  • ElaineJoy1
    September 2, 2009
    ElaineJoy1
    A simple but great tale of overcoming against the odds, this film charts 11 year old Akeelah's journey to the US national spelling bee - and the impact her success has on her wider (ghetto) community. A surprisingly well-crafted and amiable family movie - with a good plot develo...( read more)pment and characterisation but few real surprises.

    A film reuniting Angela Bassett and Laurence Fishburne deserves far more fanfare than this film has been given. Given that it's also excellent, I'm surprised it's so far under the radar. A feel-good film technically (you'd need a heart of stone not to be moved), but if a film about a kid's spelling test can have me on the edge of my seat and cheering like it's the Olympics, and has legendary actors sharing the screen, it must contain more than a little magic. Insightful, exciting and entertaining and Keke Palmer is definitely one to watch - one for the family archives.
View All Reviews

Opening This Week

Top Box Office

Upcoming Movies

New on DVD