Movie Review: Jump In!

Stars: 4 out of 5
Pros: Good acting and amazing Double Dutch scenes

Cons: Hardly original

The Bottom Line:

Aiming at the tweens

Boxing combined with jump rope

Audience will love

Double Dutch and Boxing

High School Musical was a little movie that became a huge hit for the Disney Channel. They are tried to replicate that lightning in a bottle with Jump In!  Heck, it even stars Corbin Bleu who played side kick Chad in that movie.

All Izzy Daniels (Corbin Bleu) knows is boxing. He's the third generation boxer in his family and hopes to be the third to win the coveted Golden Glove. After defeating neighborhood bully Rodney (Patrick Johnson, Jr.), he's well on his way.

Izzy's neighbor has an obsession all her own – Double Dutch jump rope. Mary (Keke Palmer) is quite good at it and the leader of a team trying to make the state competition. Izzy constantly teases Mary and her team mates about their jumping.

All that changes one day when Izzy is forced to take his sister to watch a Double Dutch competition. He's fascinated by what he sees. When Mary's team looses one of their members, Izzy agrees to step in while they search for another member but only to help them practice. He quickly finds that, not only is he good at it, but he loves it. Even more then boxing. Can he balance the two sports? Does he want to? What will his dad say when he finds out about it?

There's a reason I brought up High School Musical in the first paragraph. Not only does this movie star one of the actors from that movie, but it has very similar plot points. We've got the previously undiscovered talent and the secret desire to pursue it competing with parental expectations. Of course, not all the details are the same and High School Musical was hardly original either.

Now please don't misunderstand. I'm not trying to say that Jump In! is a bad movie. While I knew where the story was going, I was still drawn into events. I was smiling for the last 20 minutes of the film and cheered at the end.

The majority of the cast is young and, aside from Corbin, unknown to me. They all did a good job with the material. They made me care about their characters, which is what drew me into the story in the first place.

And then there are the Double Dutch scenes themselves. After I left elementary school, I don't remember doing much jump roping, so watching all the tricks and stunts they did while jumping blew me away. Lots of creativity and work went into choreographing those scenes, and they are incredibly fun to watch.

The fact that this movie was made to cash in on the success of another is hardly a major strike against it. Jump In! is an entertaining movie in its own right.