***Film Only***

It’s been a long time since I’ve watched a film as bad as Slap Shot 3: The Junior League. I’m sure if I didn’t feel some kind of twisted obligation to watch it as part of the UK’s tiny ice hockey fan base I would have switched it off within the first fifteen minutes - if I’d have even bothered with it at all. It debuted at midnight on Sky Movies Premier, hardly a sought after time slot, and the “slap shot” in the title was my only reason for noticing it. That’s an ice hockey term, ya know. It’s rare for anything vaguely related to the sport to be shown on free to view television (I know Sky’s not free but I don’t pay the bill) so I get quite enthusiastic about it when it is.

I’d never heard of the movie before I saw it in the listings. This rang a few alarm bells; an ice hockey forum I visit has frequent, long winded outbreaks of mass hysteria over the smallest of things (you don’t know “petty” until you’ve spent an evening cruising those boards) that often lead to threads with five hundred or more posts. I’d have expected at least one official Slap Shot 3 thread for regular users to post in and a few new ones each week created by users who haven’t quite got to grips with internet forum etiquette yet. Alas, none of this occurred. Not even a whisper. That, it’s straight to DVD release, and it’s Sky Movies Premier time slot had me thinking this could be a bust, but love blinds us. I settled down to watch with undamped enthusiasm anyway.

To state the obvious, Slap Shot 3 is the third film in the series. It’s a sports comedy based on ice hockey. The first was released way back in 1977, which is before my time so I’ve never seen it. Briefly put, it was about how the three Hanson brothers’ violent, no holds barred style of ice hockey turned around a failing minor league team. The humour was often crude, homosexual, violent, and likely to have the PC brigade up in arms if it were made today, but it continues to receive critical success. In 2007 it was named the best guy movie of all time by Maxim magazine; praise I’m sure that Slap Shot 3 will never receive.

THE PLOT
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The film kicks off with some scenes from the original and a voice over explaining how things in Charlestown have changed since the glory days of the Charlestown Chiefs (the team central to the first movie). It gives enough information for the viewer to grasp the basics but not enough to spoil the first, provided they can understand what the voice over is saying. Half of it is mumbled and near indecipherable. Why nothing was done about this is beyond me; re-recording, or at the very least adding subtitles, was necessary. The actor sounded like he didn’t want to be there and I don’t really blame him.

According to evil property developer Bernie Frazier, Charlestown is floundering and stuck in the past. It needs to be modernised and let go of its hockey history in order to have a thriving economy. The best way to do this, in her opinion, is to build high end housing and a golf course over the top of the Newman Home For Boys (an orphanage for those of the male gender). Aha, of course. Why hasn’t Mr Brown thought of that? In order to do this she needs the permission of the town’s council and its mayor, which will be granted (or not) based on the outcome of a vote by the townspeople. It’s nice to think that there is a council somewhere in the world that would hold a vote over planning permission but in reality this is just a ploy to justify the rest of the movie.

The vote is due in two months so the orphans must quickly prepare to save their home. The only logical way to do this is to win the townspeople’s support...by entering a team into the Junior League and beating the Ice Hounds, who are undefeated in, like, forever. Take heed, Fathers For Justice. You’ve been doing it completely wrong.

So, will the orphans be able to save the orphanage? Will the evil property developer succeed in her plans? Will Disney be sitting in their offices desperately wishing they’d come up with this idea?

I’ll admit that the only thing thinner than this plot is my knowledge of junior league ice hockey, but something seems very wrong in this movie. Is it really simply a case of getting some money together and then BAM the next day you have a hockey team entered? Does the entire junior league season last only two months? Are there really only four teams, including the brand new orphan team, in the whole league? Probably not, so an indication of the bigger picture would have been helpful. It’s not difficult to just flash the leader board up once or twice and it would also have helped show the passage of time better.

It is forty minutes in before the real film actually starts. This is a sports comedy and so far we’ve had neither. Far too long is spent setting up a weak back story to justify the orphans’ entering the league and would have benefitted greatly from some hefty editing. It moved far too slowly; twenty minutes would have been more than enough to cover everything.

Overall it’s a very predictable movie. The outcome could be guessed before it even began, but I don’t take issue with that. Most comedies are pretty straight forward; the kicks come from the quality of the jokes. This one is aimed at an audience under the age of fourteen and is simple enough for them to follow the general direction without much difficulty. However, I don’t remember there being any good plot twists. Some were tried, but they were so obvious that it’s a stretch to call them twists. There was little creativity to the writing; nothing new or original happened. Joe Average could come up with something very similar to this; some of the jokes were even rehashes from Slap Shot 1. The only time I wondered what would happen next was due to the weirdness of the situation rather than any stroke of genius on the plot’s part.

Sticking with the writing, there’s a distinct lack of humour for a comedy movie. I’m not sure exactly what I was expecting from the man that wrote “American Pie Presents Band Camp,” but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to be disappointed by what was actually here. I counted one solitary funny joke, and a few that I may have found funny if I were younger. Unfortunately these get overshadowed by a running joke that goes on for forty minutes and is at no point funny. See, the Hanson brothers have all converted to Zen now. That’s funny because they were hard core ice hockey thugs in the 1977 version. Right? Riiight? Wrong.

Fans of the first movie will probably dislike the u-turn in choice of audience. A lot of what made the original the success it was would be impossible with the 12 certificate this received, though I’m not sure what that rating is down to. I don’t remember anything that wasn’t completely U friendly, but then again the movie as a whole was pretty forgettable. I’m a little bit concerned about who would actually watch and like this film if it’s not suitable for those under the age of twelve. To change so much for the younger audience seems to make the “Slap Shot” attached to the title redundant. Apart from the inclusion of the Hanson brothers and the name of the orphanage, which are quite cosmetic things, there are few similarities between the two. It’s unfair to both this and the original to advertise it as part of the same series when they’re both clearly aimed at different viewerships.

Oh, and there’s also a lame love triangle thing going on. I add this as an afterthought because the film seems to view it as one. It seems like a tacked on attempt at a sub plot. It’s between our hero Riley Haskell, chief orphan; Ice Hounds’ super goaltender Kaine Frazier, the evil property developer’s son; and the only girl in the movie Shayne Baker, best female ice hockey player in Charlestown. You’ll never guess how it ends – oh wait, yes you will.

THE PERFORMANCES
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The quality of acting leaves something to be desired. “Something” being a good actor.

The lead role is taken up Greyston Holt, who you’ll be reassured to know featured in one episode of “The 4400” in 2007. His character in that episode is listed third from bottom on imdb.com, behind “2nd intruder”. After coming up blank on everyone’s favourite source of all knowledge, Wikipedia, I have to wonder if he even has a career. Even television extras have their own page on the ‘pedia, but not our boy here. I’d estimate his age to be roughly 24. This is a problem because he’s playing a teenager. This is a bigger problem because the many other teenagers in the movie all look to be played by actual teenagers. He stands out like a polar bear sunbathing in Egypt right up to the point where he opens his mouth. It seems someone forgot to take their charisma shots when they were little. He puts in a very bland portrayal of a character who I suspect was also very blandly written.

There were many other orphans in the movie but I don’t remember their names. There were only three that played an active part in the plot. At the beginning, when there were more of them, it was hard to pick out who the important ones were amongst the sizeable rabble. Fortunately that potential problem was quickly solved in a move that would make no sense what so ever in the real world. Bittersweet.

Lynda Boyd is another actress I’ve never heard of but she at least looks to have a back catalogue. She does an adequate job in her role as evil property developer Bernie Frazier, but does seem cartoon-like at times. She has the whole Cruella De Vil thing going on with her body language and evil sneer, overly so in my opinion. I was waiting for her to throw back her head and laugh hysterically, or maybe do the Mr Burns “excellent” gesture. She seems forced and exaggerated but considering the target audience I wouldn’t be surprised if some of this was deliberate.

The Mayor is played by Leslie Nielson who I’m told is a slap stick legend. He shows up for the first part of the movie and is then conveniently written out for a huge chunk in the middle, before finally waltzing back in near the end. He was probably included only as a promotional tool. I found it hard to understand what he was saying, especially at the start. He botched the voice over pretty bad, and it took some adjusting to his old man mumbling in the beginning. I’m glad he didn’t have a major role because it would have required a great deal of concentration on my part to hear his lines. I wasn’t impressed by what I saw from him.

Emma Lahana and Ryan McDonell as Shayne Baker and Kaine Frazier respectively put up okay performances. Neither got much screen time, but looked to have some life in them when they did. Shayne is the girl in the love triangle so was involved in a fair few awkward romance scenes with Riley, but I blame the script writer for that. I’d be surprised if he was the happy side of fifty as he seems incredibly out of touch with how teenagers interact with each other. She managed to take the edge off the pain with her performance and deserves a lot of credit for that. Kaine Frazier has the honour of delivering the film’s only joke, so congratulations to him. He had a personality; something the lead character Riley Haskell was desperately lacking. He made a very convincing villain.

The Hanson brothers were plain, uninspiring, boring and unfunny. They added nothing enjoyable to the movie whatsoever. The inclusion of their sons (they had one each) was a good idea and presented an opportunity the writer could have used in a far more effective way. Instead, they were used as occasional goons and I don’t think they had a line between them. Their part should have been expanded but instead they were yet another useless afterthought.

There were guest appearances by Mark Messier and Doug Gilmour, retired professional ice hockey players. These guys are legends in the sport so I guess they added some star power to the movie. However, as I said, they’re retired. Their careers spanned from the early 1980s to 2003-4. If you consider that 2004 is practically ancient history and players decline in their later years anyway these two are very much yesterday’s stars. The kids who this film is aimed at don’t care about Messier or Gilmour anymore, and perhaps they’re not old enough to ever have done. Here, they’re just a couple of balding old men who have been given short, unproductive cameos. And anyway, what would an NHL legend be doing at a junior league game? Why would he take it upon himself to walk into the dressing room and give a speech to newly formed team?

OVERALL
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Steer well clear. Really. Maybe young children will find some joy in this movie, but it’s not worth the price tag to find out. The Mighty Ducks film franchise would be a much safer bet and you can buy the complete three film box set for just 50p more.

THE CAST
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Greyston Holt as Riley Haskell
Lynda Boyd as Bernie Frazier
Leslie Nielson as The Mayor
Emma Lahana as Shayne Baker
Ryan McDonell as Kaine Frazier
Jeff Carlson as Jeff Hanson
Steve Carlson as Steve Hanson
David Hanson as Jack Hanson

FILM DETAILS
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Running Time: 87 minutes
Certificate: 12
Genre: Sports comedy
Price: £12.69
Released: 26th December 2008