I don’t ever want to go back and watch Space Jam again. I’m too scared that I may find a Kazaam. I have fond memories of both of these childhood “must-see” movies. But as an adult, I only explicitly remember one of them being bad. I don’t want to ruin the other before Lebron reportedly does. I didn’t have the fortune of kid goggles going into Uncle Drew. Luckily it only started out like Shaq’s second foray into film. It came through in the clutch more like Eddie (NY Knick Loyalist here, that movie was good and you know it).
Uncle Drew stars Lil Rel Howery as a down-on-his-luck Foot Locker employee who spent his life savings entering a basketball tournament at the legendary Rucker Park. After losing his team to his rival (Nick Kroll) and ex-girlfriend (Tiffany Haddish), he meets the legendary Uncle Drew (Kyrie Irving) and convinces to him enter the tournament with Drew’s old teammates from 50 years ago (Shaq, Chris Webber, Nate Robinson and [redacted]).
The first ten minutes were really distressing. It laid real heavy into everything you hoped it wouldn’t be. Stereotypical, shallow, corny, and uninteresting. The acting from Kroll, Howery, and Haddish felt like we might have been watching a Like Mike straight to TV movie. Haddish, unfortunately, has played her “SHE READY” role way too many times without the nuance we saw in Girls Trip. We all know she has it in her, but the depth is not on display in any way in this film.
Yes, I know. We aren’t going to go see Uncle Drew for depth. That is why it was unexpectedly refreshing that the film was saved by its NBA stars. They don’t try to act like anything other than older versions of the people they are in real life. That created excitement, heart and unforeseen substance. Kyrie carries the heart and love of basketball. He and Shaq had some of the most hilarious and touching moments. However, it was Lisa Leslie (as C-Webb’s wife), Webber, and Robinson that were able to carry emotional weight in their non-basketball related scenes. C-Webb was especially poignant when bringing emotional weight to bear. We won’t speak on that other person. My NY Knick loyalty won’t allow me to utter that blasphemous name here (even his voice made me seethe). Together, they oozed a camaraderie that generated deep laughs and touching lessons.
Once Uncle Drew came onto screen, the jokes from him and his crew ranged from the good kind of corny to gut-bustingly funny. There are subtle references, two specifically related to Howery and Webber, that were laugh out loud hilarious if you are sharp enough (or old enough in C-Webb’s case) to catch them. But the best byproduct of the team are the life lessons they teach. How a love and passion of anything, whether it be games, sports, movies, etc., can make you a better person. How sharing those passions with those you love make undying connections. How those passions and connections teach the importance of confronting failure instead of running away from it. These two attributes (laughs and lessons) are what moves the film from a “there ain’t no way” to a “man this really ain’t that bad. It might even be good”. Uncle Drew gets 7/10 points that are worth more than Jurassic World’s 7.5/10 (Uncle Drew was better).