i know i wasted 90 mins of my life.

Fantastic!

A Brilliant Conflict

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Jack, a chimp, has been trained by a college professor, Dr. Kendall (Lomax Study) to do various human tasks. Each week, a small gathering of adults and children come to a seminar to see his progress. But, alas, one night, the prof has a heart attack and passes away. The head of the department wants to sell him to the highest bidder, even if it means Jack will be subjected to experimentation. That cannot happen, so a janitor, Larry, smuggles Jack out of the lab and puts him on a train to California. That's where Jack's family resides. However, Jack oversleeps and ends up in British Columbia! There, a California family has just transplanted themselves as residents. The son, Steven (Kevin Zegers) is a hockey player who joins a young adult team. Of course, they give him grief for thinking a So-Cal guy can compete with Canadian players. Even in a worse situation is Steve's sister Tara (Jamie Renee Smith) who is deaf and has no luck making friends at her new school. It is Tara who finds Jack and takes him to her room. Before long, Jack is skating alongside Steven and gets himself "placed" on the team. Since the chimp can go through other skaters legs and perform other unusual feats, Steven's team starts winning big. But, with the college looking for their once valuable primate, will everyone's dreams be spoiled? This is a cute film with a funny script and a nice cast. It has a bevy of clichés, as to its story, but each one works enjoyably. No, a chimp would never be allowed on a team, but it doesn't matter. Only animal activists will frown at the flick so, unless you are one of those, get this MVP for your own Most Valuable Family.

My wife made me buy this from the bargain bin at w-mart. She loves monkey movies (I don't, as a rule).Not really a spoiler, but I figured I'd check the box just in case, before writing the next bit....What makes this film actually a bit funny, albeit probably unintentional, is the fact that the (obviously) American writers figure it takes a chimp and a red-blooded American boy to make a Canadian hockey team take itself seriously. The Canadians on the team are portrayed as lunkheads who really don't care about winning or losing and can't play hockey.....until, of course, the pretty boy and the chimp from South of the border come up and teach them a lesson in winning and team pride.Seriously folks, since when have the Americans taught Canadians ANYTHING about hockey??? The Miracle on Ice that occurred 30 years ago was called a "miracle" for a reason.To put this in perspective from a cultural-pride point of view, think of how a movie with a Canadian kid who plays baseball and a bear cub from Canada somehow made it onto a AAA baseball team. The team really sucks and all the pre-existing American guys were fat and stupid, and the Canadian duo led them to the championship. If that sounds appealing to you, then by all means, watch this movie.

Always on Daytime Sky movies, terrible plot, awful wooden acting. Was watching this while decorating, and being truthful, was difficult to decide whether this or the paint was more interesting to watch.AVOID AVOID AVOID. I do not understand why there are now three versions of this primate film, and why SKY seem it important enough to show all of these, most weekdays, several times a day.Perhaps it was because they got them on discount.Please vote with your feet and get sky and other companies to take this dross off our screens.

First the dog plays basketball. Then football. Then soccer. Then baseball with a racoon. Now we have a monkey playing hockey, a sequel where the same monkey skateboards, and according to this web site there is a third DTV movie starring the horrible primate on the way! Am I the only person on the planet who detests animal-sport movies?! I watched this on the Disney Channel when there was nothing on, and it was so predictable I was actually telling the movie what to do. Okay old man, could you like die in the next five seconds please? Ah, thanks. Could the evil coach object to a monkey playing hockey only to be reprimanded because there's no rule against monkeys playing hockey? Wow, thanks for that. Sheesh. For some reason they decided to throw in a deaf girl plot but then they throw in another Air Bud cliche by having a smart villan and a dumb sidekick looking for the monkey so they can experiment on him. Could someone write a script please?! A really odd scene is where the 'cool' girl (if there is such a thing in the 5th grade) passes out birthday party invitations to all the kids in class. The deaf girl gets all mopey. Suddenly the cool girl starts THROWING these invitations in the air and they go everywhere, and the whole thing is in slow motion. Now, later on the film says the deaf girl wasn't invited. Well, if the cool girl was just throwing them for people to pick up, it doesn't seem like they were personalized. Also, she clearly states that 'everyone' can come. So why didn't the deaf girl just grab one and show up for the party? It's not like the cool girl can turn away a wimpering deaf kid. Anyway, here are the top five ideas for the future of animal-sport flicks:1. A giraffe plays volleyball (and can always spike it!) 2. A polar bear is adopted by a middle school dodgeball team 3. The last remaining dodo takes up archery 4. Some wacky seals try out for a Canadian water polo league 5. A one-legged cat competes in the Olympic track eventDo I sound sarcastic? Good. MVP may not suck the big donkey, but it is not anything special by any stretch of the mind. 2/4 stars.