Like Mike is a quite formulaic and cheesy family movie about an outsider who is having dreams of becoming somebody famous and of course his dreams come true. Our hero, Calvin Cambridge, (played by Lil Bow Wow) lives in an orphanage in Los-Angeles, near basketball stadium where his favorite NBA team L.A. Knights plays (by the way fictitious team, real teams in L.A. are Lakers and Clippers). He also loves to play basketball very much and l this game is the only sweet thing that he got in his miserable life in an orphanage. But he is just an ordinary thirteen or fourteen year boy without any special talent for playing his favorite game. One day his finds old sneakers, which are supposed to belong before to some famous basketball player and he believes that was legendary Michael Jordan. After a short confrontation with his rival those sneakers get stuck on a power line and when Calvin is trying to get them back the lightning hits near him and he is shocked by power line. Soon he realizes that his shoes are magic and they give him extraordinary abilities for playing basketball and he wins an exhibition match against real NBA star. There is nothing surprising that after such win he become a player of his favorite team Knights and his life is going to change. The magic promised in the beginning of the story is gone within few minutes and we just see how young celebrity is trying to get into contact with his new partners and fragments of NBA matches with our hero who easily become one of the best players in the whole league and jumps like a
well I don't know exactly like what but one is obvious that he beat some records with his jumps. So Calvin became a NBA player and a celebrity but somehow he has no contract and he still has no any money. Sense of reality is obviously completely lost here. Numerous and mostly silly appearances of actual NBA stars throughout the movie (though some basketball fans obviously would like that), with mentioned scenes of basketball matches and inside the team scenes make that some parts of the movie look like a some kind of silly NBA promotion. And all those basketball elements of the story most of the time easily overshadow all possible morale messages in Like Mike. Well, I believe I have paid enough attention to the movie plot and negative elements and flaws. Despite all above mentioned besides its primitiveness Like Mike is a harmless movie (today that already means something) and not so rude, compared to some recent family friendly movies. The acting is mainly mediocre (the bad guy was really pathetic) with Morris Chestnut (as Tracey Reynolds) as the only bright spot. The chemistry between his character and Lil Bow Wow (who also in some moments shows some acting abilities) is one of a few really decent moments about Like Mike. In the conclusion if you are looking for a good family movie I would rather recommend to find something else than Like Mike, though some kids might like it, particularly die-hard basketball fans.
My grade 5 out of 10.
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