Kickin' It Old Skool

Although Jamie Kennedy might have once exhibited a goofy, charming naïveté and a mischievously naughty quality, his shtick has gone stale in filmmaker Harvey Glazer's Kickin' It Old Skool, in which he plays Justin, a 32-year-old who's spent 20 years in a coma following an accident during a 1986 break-dancing contest. Awakening just as his cash-strapped parents are about to pull the plug, Justin (a 12-year-old in a man's body) aims to raise money by getting his old group, the Funky Fresh Boys, together again for a run at a $100,000 prize offered by a television dance contest. The snag, of course, is that all the guys are older and way out of shape; plus, the contest host is none other than the smug jerk who was Justin's rival for the affections of a classmate two decades earlier—and now he's engaged to her. What follows is a pro-forma rehash of Big and Blast from the Past, an alternating slapstick and gross-out tale of our hero's efforts to get his buddies back into dancing trim, pursue his old sweetheart while outmaneuvering her nasty fiancé, and win the money. It's not the utter predictability that dooms the film, so much as the rampant tastelessness and ineptitude of the writing and execution in gags involving bodily orifices, vomiting, nudity, the mentally challenged, obesity, and the drugged-out homeless. On top of that, the final dance-off seems to drag on longer than the Olympics. Not recommended. [Note: DVD extras include 12 deleted scenes (29 min.), and trailers. Bottom line: an unremarkable extras package for a lame comedy.] (F. Swietek)