It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

A moving film that manages to make spelling interesting and even dramatic.Keke Palmer is wonderful as a gifted South Los Angeles 11-year-old who is afraid of appearing smart until she tentatively gets involved in her school's first Spelling Bee.She starts to blossom as she gains a chance to mix with kids from more privileged neighborhoods and is coached by a UCLA English professor (Laurence Fishburne) who forbids the use of street slang. Fishburne helps Akeelah see that people aren't afraid of being not-good-enough -- but of failing to show how great they are.This film beautifully portrays how one person's growth can ripple outward to affect everyone in her family and community.This powerful work has gotten me wondering whether my own pre-teen might benefit from getting involved in the bee!

Uplifting story about a young girl who's father has died, her mother works to support her and the girl seems alone in the world in many ways. She goes to school in a poor neighborhood that doesn't have all of the resources for her to have the best education possible. One thing that she does have is words. Her intellect and her knowledge for words are great and her school needs help with getting it on the map and they want to use Akeelah to help show that their children at the school need the same advantages other students get. Akeelah wins a spelling bee and then is coached by a man telling her that she needs to learn different words and to be able to break them down and know their origins...Akeelah eventually learns a lot about herself, her family, her neighborhood and she reaches for the stars and doesn't let fear hold her back.I always thought it was just a stupid kids film about a spelling Bee, but I watched it and was rather touched by the message here. No one should let the place they come from or the people around them stop them from dreaming big and trying to do the best they can in life. Life is not written in stone for you when you are born and anyone has the power to rise above.Laurence Fisburne, Angela Bassett, Curtis Armstrong and Keke Palmer do wonderful jobs acting here.This is a good drama and it has some powerful messages. 6/10 stars

This movie is just outstanding, although I'm not an English native speaker, but I really enjoyed that movie so much, and I learned a lot of words also... Akeelah (Keke Palmer) was just amazing and she proved that she's a good actress ! I just remember that scene at the school in the very first competition, when Dr. Larabee (Laurence Fishburne) asked her to pronounce some super tough words and she did it. and also when he taught her how to deconstruct that long Latin word "Soliterraneous"... it was just amazing ! so Akeelah, can you pronounce "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" fast, and tell the definition of it ;)after all, it's really a must see movie, i give it 8/10

In this film we see two awesome superstars of Hollywood.Lawrence Fishbourne and Angela Bassett worked great together,in the Tina Turner biopic What's Love Got to Do With It; Here, Bassett plays a mother of a sweet young girl,Akeelah.After her father dies,Akeelah wants to pay honor to him,by entering a nationwide spelling bee.She learns some valuable lessons in her journey of "self discovery".I like the way she teaches her rival's father some important tools to learn.Through her brilliant "professor",Akeelah acquires humility,and understands that pride is a virtue that gets you nowhere in Life. Her rival's father learns that people are subject to downfall,and cannot "win" all the time.I love this film and am amazed at the performances! Through Akeelah,everyone is "cut down" a notch lower than they believe they are. I say Bravo to the cast,who shine!