Youngblood (1986)

Directed by Peter Markle. Starring Rob Lowe, Cynthia Gibb, Ed Lauter, Patrick Swayze, Jim Youngs, Eric Nesterenko, Fionnula Flanagan, Ken James, Peter Faussett, George Finn, Keanu Reeves. [R]

Predictable cheeseball sports picture cribs from the playbooks of dozens of other sports pictures, and lacks a compelling protagonist to hold the trope-addled line. For example, the star, a bland hockey hotshot (Lowe) playing in a small-time Canadian league, has a “meet cute” with a young lady who—get this—turns out to be the coach’s daughter, whoa! Dismal on both the writing and directing levels, it’s emblematic of the sort of proud macho b.s. where the hero doesn’t win the day by improving his playing skills or learning a lesson about teamwork or life or whatever, but rather by learning how to take and throw a punch for a confrontation with a rival goon at the end of the championship game. And it’s hard to say who deserves the most blame for such an uninteresting lead character; just don’t bother trying to count the number of times the camera cuts to him for a response but he says nothing as if either he forgot his lines or the screenwriters forgot to give him any, and the director apparently just threw up his hands and shouted, “Moving on!” Constantly played back at half-speed, you’d be hard-pressed to find less exciting ice hockey action in a feature film (and I’ve seen two Mighty Ducks movies). Film debut for Reeves; it’s a small role, and he only has a few lines, which are delivered in a less-than-convincing French-Canadian accent!

34/100