Seen: June 7th, 2007
Format: Blu-Ray
Rating: 7
There's something about sports films that feels very American to me. Maybe it's the fact that I grew up with ABC Sports where "The thrill of victory, and the agony of defeat" weren't just words, but reflected the way I felt about my teams and favorite athletes. I'm no jock, but I competed in various sports through college and know what those words can mean.
This is a pretty much an excuse for the fact that I really like well-done sports films.
Invincible is nothing if not well put together. There's some sharp producers at Disney, and this sort of underdog story is their bread and butter, so they've become quite adept at putting out a solid product.
The underdog story is the classic sports story. No one wants to hear how some great team or athlete who was expected to win destroyed their competition. It might be appropriate to honor a great team or athlete with some sort of retrospective, but there's little drama when the heavy favorite to win, does. Heck, I rooted for Ottawa in the finals, just because I thought Anaheim was the better team.
We're actually much more intrigued by great athletes failing and falling than we are in them suceeding. There are hundreds of examples. This is especially true when the athlete has an overabundance of confidence, ego or attitude. We want the high and mighty to fall, to be gain some humility, to regain their humanity. That's where the drama in those stories lie.
The underdog on the other hand, is a story generally worth telling. It shows us the best part of us a humans. It gives us vicarious hope. It shows us what is good about us. The commitment, the work, maybe some humility again, and underlying it all, the desire to succeed. Even if the hero doesn't win, and sometimes they don't, it's their journey that we care about.
All this buildup is pretty much to tell you that's this is a pretty decent underdog tale.
It's not that new, or different. It doesn't really break any new ground. It's not about a Miracle, just about a decent guy who overcames some odds and lived his dream for a while.
But the thing about these stories is that they don't have to be new. It helps, but they tend to stand on their own because if they're based on real people, the story will be different. Not unique perhaps, but different enough that we know it's new.
Enough wandering around.
Wahlberg is very good here. Sometimes he hits the mark, and this is one of them. I think Elizabeth Banks is awesome. She's a real chameleon. After seeing Slither less than a week ago, this was a complete shift.
Everything else is good. The production is very slick. The football scenes are well done, and the digital recreation of Veterans stadium, though not perfect according to some, is impressive.
This may not be Vince Papale's real story. It may have been inflated a little, dramatized a little, perhaps some things swept under the rug. Who knows? But the basics of the story are his, and Invincible does a good job telling it.
The Good: Solid, no-frills sports film
The Bad: Hard times in Philly
The Ugly: Getting blindsided
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