Air Bud: Spikes Back (2003)

A Masterpiece!

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

The first must-see film of the year.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

First, the movie lost a star because of the inaccurate title. Buddy is a setter not a spiker. They even note that fact in the movie. It was succinct and non-stop. Very little happened in the movie that didn't add to a character's motivation or advance the plot. Unless you consider the plot to be "Buddy plays volleyball" then nothing advances the plot the entire movie. That overlooks the true plot of the movie though, "Buddy robs a... museum?"The subplot of the movie focuses on Marv and Stretch trying to steal a tennis ball sized piece of glass cut like a diamond from what is either a summer camp office, a ranger station, or a museum with a lot of sensors and a stereotypical fat rent-a-cop. How do you get past the lasers? A dog of course.But, they fail. After setting off the laser they escape but have to chase Buddy and are recognized by the guard from casing the joint (or working in their daily job or something).That's the first problem with the plan. It's unnecessary. Their main conflict could have been solved with a mask and some sprinting ability. They wasted weeks trying to dognap an MVP because they overestimated the security response. Sloppy.The second is why Buddy? They saw him display the two skills necessary for the task (ducking and grabbing a ball) while his owner stood and made weird faces (the prize in this competition between an adult and a child was ice cream coupons, which is great for Kevin, whose primary diet is ice cream but would have been a real bummer for the adult if they won). That's helpful, but why not just get a new dog and train him on their own? A stranger's dog isn't going to behave for you. They spent a lot of time and money watching a little boy (risky if the town had more than a single elderly police officer). The plan wouldn't have worked if there were a leash law. If there was one, Buddy's owners simply didn't care.They could have been successful had they taken a little extra time to think it through. They end up locked in the back of a police car in the sun on the beach while the officer officiates a volleyball game. Possibly to perish.The other plot focuses on Buddy's owners, Kevin and Kat. Kevin is a toddler who is in charge of training Buddy and advancing the plot through negligence. Kat is a teen girl who is left behind when her best-friend moves to Kalifornia. Her parents won't pay to visit, so they're probably on the East coast. The only stale moment in this rip-roaring plot is a montage of her attempts to make money. Though it has more negligence from Kevin as he allows a dog to suffer a rash after heavy shampooing without rinsing.Eventually through classic hijinks Kat has to use the money to payback merchants after Kevin let the dogs out and they destroyed some junk (and gave these shifty beach merchants a chance to gouge a child "let's round it up..." before skipping town). With a heavy heart, she writes Veronica a letter and tells her she won't be coming to Kalifornia (why a letter? It's 2003, she can get on AIM and chat with her. This question isn't explored).So, instead of visiting California she hangs out with the whifro kid who moved into Veronica's house (Jughead). He plays volleyball. When a member of his team dies or something he tells Coach (an overenthusiastic 90s caricature who has more visors that say "Coach" on them than most people have shoes--maybe because it's his actual name and they're monogrammed) to let her play because he wants to "serve her" his "spike". Buddy teaches her how to play. Some would argue she should have learned earlier; some are right but the issue is never explored. Some would argue she shouldn't let a dog teach her sports, but have you seen Buddy's resume?She plays and they do well. Or they lose. I think both occurred. They lose the last game, Betty--the team's "setter"--leaves the team to buy a sports bra. They need a fifth man! Luckily, there's nothing in the rulebook that says a dog can't play volleyball (well, no one ever checks, but the opposing team "Mouserat" never brings it up). So Buddy plays and does well. Now it's the one game tournament!Buddy is late because he had to escape Marv and Stretch. The team was doing well (behind by three) despite being a man down and Buddy only touches the ball twice for the victory. You won't notice though because you'll be so pumped that Buddy is finally playing volleyball AND THEY'RE GOING TO THE CHAMPIONSHIP.Well, Buddy is. And Kat is there with Veronica. Oh because it's in Kalifornia. But Buddy is playing doubles with an adult we've never seen before despite the play-in game being teams with children. They should have spent a minute explaining any of this. They don't. The movie ends suddenly and all you have left are questions.Overall, you just spent more time reading this review than it would have taken you to watch the movie. Don't be afraid to watch this movie, it will be over before you realize and since the whole thing is available on YouTube/Amazon for free there's no excuse. Unless they cut parts out. Which I'd believe because tons of it didn't make sense. If nothing else, every moment is worth it for Jughead's whifro.Oh! That reminds me. Jughead skateboards. It's a big thing in the movie. I have no idea why.The biggest downside of the movie is that Buddy plays fewer minutes of volleyball than it took you to load the IMDb homepage. Don't watch at your own risk.

The Disney company is a corporation, so we have no reason to expect them to keep from doing something that they shouldn't do if money is involved. Air Bud is a perfect example of how much money can be made off of sequels to incredibly stupid movie. I hate to brake it to you people, but the original Air Bud was not a good movie! Wow, what a revelation!!! But the fact that an Air Bud 5 even exists should be enough reason for God or Budha or Captain Crunch to come down upon the human race with fire and brimstone and giant, fire-breathing waterfowl that will kill whoever is responsible for destroying the imaginations and intellect of the children who watch these effortless films because their parents sit them down in front of the TV for ninety minutes so that they can have their "special time" to create more worthless children to cover our forsaken earth until were overrun with hopeless, sagging drones who vote for George Bush and watch reality television! phew... You already know the plot of this movie. Your children already know the plot of this movie. If they're going to watch something, have them watch a Disney classic, please, I really do fear for their future... (p.s. Not all those who vote for George Bush are idiots, but most are)

I feel I do not need to see the preceding four films in this sorry series, as they all seem to be the same story retold with a different sport: Cute dog excels at soccer/basketball/croquet and wins every game going, while irritating pre-teens fall in love and well-meaning grown ups teach life-lessons. Why bother to replicate such an obvious formula four times? Because there are parents stupid enough out there to plunk their money down to watch the same rubbish again and again, and let's face it, the kids love the animals. They could put out a video of the main canine cast jumping around for an hour without a single human featuring in it and the rugrats would still lap it up. If you are over the age of 7 though and have the misfortune of being forced to sit through this, I can offer the following advice: 1: Sellotape your eyeballs down as they would otherwise get pretty sore, what with you rolling them every few minutes. 2: If you have a pet hound or your neighbour does, try and keep away from them at least a full day over the movie is over, or you might do something to it you'll regret.. On a closing note, I see this film had a budget of 5 million dollars, what a scary thought. Think how many starving kids could have been fed with that money, rather than letting it be spent on this disposable nonsense. It's enough to make you put your paws over your eyes and whine..

ho lee crap. why did this get made? on top of crappy dog-spiking-the-ball effects, air bud 5 also tries to make us think anyone cares about competitive beach volleyball. sure, the activity is fun, and could be the basis of a bad episode of bay watch, but it isn't a movie. the movie also has a substory in which bud unwittingly steals a big diamond. that's great, only for the fact that it eliminates the chances of "air bud: k-9 catburglar" getting made. on the plus side, slower kids might like it because the dog does things that a normal dog wouldn't do. the smarter kids would say 'big deal', as he proved that when he dunked a basketball over five years ago. my opinion is, let the dog eat his alpo, shoot some hoops for old times sake and live out the rest of his life minus the well-digging, third-rate, kid-grabber sequels.