151 Proof Movies Hangover: Air Bud: Spikes Back

Air Bud month comes to a close as we examine the 5th and final film in the series, Air Bud: Spikes Back. Right off the back, the title pun is no where near as good as previous incarnations like Golden Receiver or World Pup, and the drop in quality isn’t just reflected in the title of the movie. In the grand tradition of the Air Bud franchise, the biggest thing in this movie is the cast turn-around. I’m not quite sure why the films have so many changes, but this movie not only re-cast the step-father (for the 4th straight movie!), but also the lead (Josh’s sister) and introduces Josh’s little brother. And for some odd reason, Air Bud kids aren’t mentioned at all during this movie, which was kind of strange, but guess had to take them out of the spotlight to launch Air Buddies.

Wow, that is a long into for an Air Bud movie, but let’s get to the scoreboard!

Movie-1

Swan- 1

I don’t even know what to say. For family, the only returning character is the mother, who I have a soft spot for because of Dead Like Me. The young son was super creepy and annoying, and I swear this kid had Mumps. For some reason they changed the actress of the sister which is a shame, the sister was one of the things I really liked from the last movie. This movie did have 2 of the most stereotypical villains. We had the dumb one, who didn’t understand common things, and the fat one who fuckin’ loved food.

I am looking forward to whatever is next,there has to be more to talk about next time. These movies were just….awkward to talk about

Penguin-1

I mentioned in one of our earlier reviews that the Air Bud movies have a formula about them, when it works, it works well, but when they attempt to veer off the path it just makes for a boring movie. The biggest divergence in this movie is the focus away from the sport of choice. Beach volleyball actually doesn’t become a thing in this movie until a little past half-way though the film. Instead the first half of the movie is focused on Josh’s sister trying to save up enough money to visit her best friend in California before the summer is up (I would note that the sister has been the lead in 2 of the movies and for the life of me can’t remember her name!). Now if you have seen any sitcom in the past… ever.. you know exactly how this will pan out. The original plan falls apart for some reason, but there just so happens to be a contest that will give them exactly what they need!

Being Air Bud formulaic I can work with in an Air Bud movie, but just being formulaic for the sake of it doesn’t make for an entertaining flick. Also, the new cast just lacks the light and energy that the other movies showed.

Drink-1.5

Swan- 2

I will give it a 2 because I don’t remember much of movie. Honestly, I had to pregame this movie to make sure I didn’t kill myself out of anger. Aside from my anger drinking the movie was pretty slow for first half. Once the dog joined the team the drinking really picked up and we had lots of drinking fun. Predrinking movies may not be the best idea but I figured I must try. I did also follow it up with boredom drinking so I guess my rating should be much higher but that would be super cheating.

Penguin-1

Much like the prior 2 Air Bud movies, the rules don’t work nearly as well with this film just because of the familiarity people have with Buddy at this point. We made a call ahead of this movie to replace people questioning a dog playing sports with folks actively cheering the appearance of Buddy because let’s face it after playing basketball, football, soccer and baseball, there really isn’t anything left to question about his ability!

This movie did however make up for the lack of montages in the previous films with I believe something like 4 of them throughout the course of the movie. One that went on just a bit TOO long so we decided to double up drinks due to its duration. Aside from that, there’s really very little else I remember about the movie. And wasn’t due to heavy drinking just bored and zoning out.

That will do it for Air Bud month. It was interesting watching the 5 films in the franchise. They aren’t horrible movies by any stretch of the imagination, they actually do vary from charming family movies to just dull family movies, but if you watch with kids they should be fun for the most part. Really don’t recommend watching as an adult on your own… because why would you.

I have no idea what Feb brings, but we’ll be here to guide you the entire way through!

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