Horatio Sanz

A fundamentally unappealing jerk whose redemption comeswith an even shorter and less convincing story arc, coach Roy McCormickignores the kids one day -- pouting about his downfall on the sidelinesas they lose a game 84-0 -- then the next he's become a life-affirmingaltruist full of feel-good advice and game-winning strategy, just becausethe script says so.

Even more problematic is that while "Rebound"is aimed at children, the one-trait tweenagers he's teaching to play thegame are barely characters at all, save Tara Correa ("Judging Amy")as a stout, scowling girl bully McCormick recruits to intimidate otherteams. "You got five fouls," he advises her with a wiseacre wink."Don't be afraid to use 'em."

Somehow this sloppy, mechanical movie (even the minimalgame scenes lack vibrancy) manages to dig up some energy and spirit inthe last act, which keeps it from collapsing under the weight of its ownineptitude. Kids may like it, not knowing enough to recognize its failureto relate to them, and accompanying parents won't want to claw their eyesout.

Continue reading: Rebound Review

Driven entirely by tedious clichés, vulgar stereotypes, tawdry and low-brow raunch-as-comedy gags, and the degrading, almost minstrel-show antics of a mugging, rubber-faced Cuba Gooding Jr., "Boat Trip" is a gay-themed movie aimed squarely and exclusively at stupid straight people.

The contrived mix-up plot finds Gooding and John Belushi-wannabe Horatio Sanz ("Saturday Night Live") trapped onboard a cruise ship full of gay men for a weeklong voyage, and writer-director Mort Nathan (who scripted the Farrelly Brothers' "Kingpin") finds endless excuses for them to act cartoonishly homosexual in order to score with the few women on board.

Gooding has fallen for the ship's dance instructor (Roselyn Sanchez) -- a steamy Latina who walks around in see-through linen tops and three pounds of eye shadow while professing "I don't care about makeup, I don't care about what I'm wearing." Meanwhile fat, ugly, loutish Sanz has the hots for a brain-dead bimbo (Playboy Playmate Victoria Silvstedt) from the "Swedish suntanning team" who was rescued from a shipwreck along with a dozen other swimsuit models. Inexplicably, she has the hots for him too -- not because there's anything attractive about him whatsoever, but because the director is transparently more interested in any excuse for bug-eyed boob shots than he is in anything remotely resembling story or humor.

Continue reading: Boat Trip Review