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2006, Movie, PG, 83 mins

Zoom: Review

ZOOM | ZOOM: ACADEMY FOR SUPERHEROES
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One of the most dismal excuses for family entertainment ever perpetrated by a major studio, this crude, lazy variation on Disney's SKY HIGH (2005) revolves around the education of four "special" youngsters at the hands of a washed-up superhero. Once upon a time, Jack Shepard (Tim Allen), aka Captain Zoom, led a super-team with his brother, Concussion (Kevin Zegers). But a secret military initiative, the Zenith Project, tried to use radiation to enhance the team members' powers, which turned Concussion evil; he murdered most of the team before being sucked into an interdimensional rift and presumed dead. Thirty years later, researcher Dr. Grant (Chevy Chase) discovers that Concussion is still alive and making his way back to our world through a blossoming spatial anomaly. Monomaniacal General Larraby (Rip Torn) reactivates the Zenith Project and recruits embittered, has-been Jack to train a new youthful super-team — 17-year-old Dylan West (Michael Cassidy of The O.C.), who can make himself vanish; bratty, super-strong 6-year-old girlie-girl Cindy Collins (Ryan Newman); tubby 12-year-old Tucker Williams (Spencer Breslin), who can make parts of his body expand to superhuman size; and 16-year-old telepath Summer Jones (Kate Mara) — without letting on that they're being prepped to kill his brother. Lured in by money and the awkward charms of geeky psychologist Marsha Holloway (Courteney Cox), Jack inevitably opens his heart to the gifted youngsters and realizes he can't let Larraby exploit and perhaps destroy them. For a stunningly mediocre piece of junk, ZOOM stirred up a lot of dust in preproduction: 20th-Century Fox and Marvel Enterprises filed suit claiming similarities to the X-MEN franchise, and gossip about the SKY HIGH resemblance hinged on the fact that Amazing Adventures from Zoom's Academy author-illustrator Jason Lethcoe was once a Disney storyboard artist. In any event, the finished product is an interminable-seeming string of "getting the team together" montages and jokes about bodily functions. The sets and effects look cheap, the adult cast lurches from one mortification to another — Cox's pratfalls and Chase's dithering are especially sad — and Breslin and Newman are thoroughly obnoxious, underage hams. If the film had a saving grace it would be Mara and Cassidy, who both evince a certain laid-back charm, but they don't stand a chance against the onslaught of snot gags, product placements, flying-saucer joyride jokes and "cute" robot Mr. Pibb, a shameless rip-off of mechanical 1980s heart-tugger Number 5 of the SHORT CIRCUIT films. leave a comment --Maitland McDonagh
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