Akeelah and the Bee: Critic Reviews

Akeelah and the Bee may spell it out for you, but it pulls few punches in its depiction of the hurdles a verbally gifted South Central L.A. 11-year-old (Keke Palmer) must clear.

... an underdog tale that manages to inspire without being sappy.

Give it an m, i, s, s.

... it's easy to overlook that contrivance, because the movie's heart is so clearly in the right place.

... this by turns funny, affecting tale pays homage not just to one young person's determination and character but to all those parents, teachers and myriad guardian angels who in real life instill young people with the love of language ...

If Akeelah and the Bee is a generic, well-oiled commercial contraption, it is the first to credibly dramatize the plight of a truly gifted, poor black child.

Beneath its sentimental exterior, this film is Foucauldian enough to take seriously the idea that knowledge is power.

... Palmer -- and J.J. Villarreal, as her unflappable fellow contestant and first-blush romantic interest -- makes it all go down very easily.

Producers, including Mark Cuban and Starbucks, should be commended for putting their money behind a film that, like Akeelah herself, dares to be different.

Akeelah and the Bee carefully diagrams every cliche we've absorbed from sports movies, urban dramas, mentor flicks and precocious-children portraits. Yet it works.

The story of Akeelah's ascent to the finals of the National Spelling Bee makes an uncommonly good movie, entertaining and actually inspirational, and with a few tears along the way.

Even though their movie is more like Akeelah and the B-Plus, Fishburne, Bassett and Palmer spell quality.

Palmer soars, carrying writer/director Doug Atchison's film on new 'tween wings.

An old-fashioned but thoroughly good-hearted tale of academics, achievement and uplift ...

Sure it takes place in the geeky world of spelling bees, but Akeelah has the same old-fashioned, feel-good, against-the-odds qualities as Rocky.

Overly calculated yet undeniably potent.

Akeelah and the Bee is so warm and well-meaning that you may find yourself wanting to like it more than you really do.

... a delight to sit through ...

The latest spelling bee movie is a Starbucks Entertainment product, and it has a made-to-order feel about it, kind of like a compilation album.

Akeelah is derivatively entertaining in a feel-good sort of way.

Effectively anchoring the picture is Keke Palmer's lovely lead performance as Akeelah Anderson.

It's a successful feel-good movie, but it would make you feel even better if it didn't push quite so hard for its desired effects.

It isn't just about the competition. It is about heart, dedication, intelligence and the pulling together of a entire community.

Akeelah and the Bee is the kind of movie you want to recommend to every 11-year-old you know.

The best thing ... is that, unlike the majority of sports films, the film doesn't suggest that spelling has some kind of transcendental importance.