Free Style: Critic Reviews

The plot of Free Style, lifted wholesale from any number of kid-with-a-dream movies, unfolds just the way you think it will... until the climax turns out to be even cheesier than you feared.

Free Style is about motocross and stars Corbin Bleu of the Disney Channel repertory company, two facts that might lead you to expect a certain kind of film.

Lower-class rage is addressed in a fashion that most movies -- let alone family ones -- shy away from. Which doesn't make this a good movie, but at least it has something on its mind.

Bleu remains one to watch, but only real fans will want to watch this.

As predictable and cliche as Free Style is, it moves along briskly enough and Bleu is compelling enough that it doesn't wear out its welcome.

You don't have to be a swooning teenage girl to be enamored of Free Style and its heartthrob actor Corbin Bleu.

There are some charming actors in this movie, all dressed up but with no place to go. Free Style is remorselessly formulaic, with every character and plot point playing its assigned role.

Bleu's cute-but-bland act flatlines in every scene of a movie with a script that is a perfect match for his abilities.

The movie revels in that kind of good-natured, sitcom-style corniness.

A film Barack Obama would approve of screening for Sasha and Malia -- there's even a jab at private health insurers.

Teen motocross fan aims big in well-meaning but so-so drama.

If the world truly needs a family-friendly drama built around motocross racing, it might as well be Free Style, a wholly competent film from journeyman director William Dear.

Establishing some rooting interest in an underdog like Bleu's character is essential for movies like this, but not to the point where needless subplots about his mother's relationship with the local sheriff is more vital than putting rubber to dirt.

You can always while away the hour and a half playing 'Count the Cliches.' One wishes Bleu all the best, but on the evidence of this picture his career might be a lot shorter than his hair.

Anyone over the legal voting age will have to suffer through "valuable" life lessons to get to the sick two-wheel aerials. Nothing ever comes for free.

Soft-peddled father issues, and race relations get coasted over like so much conveyor-belt product in director William Dear's oh-so-safe kids' romantic sports drama.

For High School Musical fans unwaveringly devoted to Corbin Bleu, Free Style provides ample opportunity to swoon over the former East High basketballer's big floppy hair and Disney Channel-grade emoting.