Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

I By CHICANERY HENNY RAY ABRAMS Supercross: The Dud H oW bad is Supercross: The Movie? So bad that the stu- dio didn't screen it for film critics. So bad that it registered 2 percent among those same critics on rottentomatoes.com. (Gigli got 7 percent. Deuce Bigalow. American Gigolo got I I percent). So bad that if it was showing on an airplane, you'd walk out. And the worst crime is that it doesn't do justice to the sport of Supercross. You probably want to hear more about Supercross: the Movie. Why? Your $10 would be better spent on lottery tickets, gasoline, or porn. This pile is so fragrant that the remaining prints should be chopped up and turned into fertilizer. Sprinkle it over your garden and you'll be growing watermelons the size of Escalades. The warning to turn off your cell phone is the most interesting part of the movie. The dancing popcorn and Coke were more lifelike than the stick figures who delivered lines like, "Oh, this is awful!" Or did that come from the only other sucker in the theater for the not-such-a-bargain matinee. Probably not. She was in the very middle of the front row, craning her neck like a sword swallower to experience the maximum sensory perception of a few million dollars going up in smoke. What did I like about the movie? It was short, which is something of a mystery since it took forever to make. When they started making this movie, Steve Whitelock was in diapers. Ricky Carmichael makes appearances on both Hondas and Suzukis. The story is as Simple and linear as a yardstick, but less interesting. It tells the story of the racing Carlyle brothers, K.C. and Trip, a pair of pool-cleaning slackers from Palmdale. There's your first mistake. Nothing against Palmdale, but there are tonier addresses in Southern California. Borrego Springs, East L.A., Rosamond all spring to mind. Trip, a scruffy, bearded blond, is the impetuous hothead. In a rare moment of clarity, the Tripster wagers the company's beater pickup that his CRF450R can outdrag a dirty shirt's Harley. It might if you didn't spend the whole run on doing a wheelie while Biker Bob hit the boost button. K.C. is the more mature but slower brother, the one doing the slow burn at all of life's injustices. The one who uses a bag of frozen peas - a staple in any rider's cooler - to soothe his pranged knee. The Holy Grail is the factory ride, with the hot chick thrown in as an added bonus. Only this being a work of fiction, it's not a YamaJ:1a or Kawasaki factory ride, it's the all-new world-beating Nami Bullet. Nam, being a shortened version of Vietnam - the last country the United States unsuccessfully tried to colonize makes using Nami and Bullet an unfortunate choice. No doubt the bike in the sequel will be the Iraqi Improvised Explosive Device. In fact the Japanese word "nami" translates to "wave" or "average, medium, common, ordinary." Which means gang as the brothers' late father. "We're both descendants of chopper trash, I guess," Piper pipes before asking Trip to help her undress. Rowdy Sparks, the buzz-cut son of the owner of Nami, and the real-life Tyler Evans play the heavies. "That's Tyler Evans, one of the dirtiest riders in Supercross," one of the boys says. Evans has more tattoos than the Fresno chapter of the Hell's Angels, which is probably why he was chosen. Evans is, in fact, a nice guy, but the intoxicating effect of show biz is more powerful than the Nami Bullet. When Rowdy asks Slow Burn to be his wing man, it pits him against his brother, the boys from Palmdale aspire to race an ordinary motorcycle. Sort of like what Junior and Hopper are doing. The relationships are bafOing. True love would seem to prevail when Slow Burn hooks up with a rich brunette law student. The speedy Trip falls for fellow racer Piper Gale (or was it Gale Piper), a cute young blonde whose brother races and whose father was in the same biker who ingratiated himself to Piper's dad and graduated to Piper's Hog Heaven race team. But not for long. He ends up with a right-leg-and-hip fracture and a severe concussion. This is when you have to pray for our fallen hero. If he's lucky, he'll be heavily sedated for the rest of the movie. Poor bastard didn't make it. He suffered through the end of it with the rest of us. Slow Burn nears the end of his fuse as the movie winds down. "I'm tired of playing wing man to that idiot," he says just before his factory ride disappears prior to the Las Vegas Supercross. Does the movie have a happy ending? Like a $100 massage? No, but I have a better ending that might help save this leaky vessel. In my version, the movie ends with Slow Burn winning the Las Vegas Supercross. But as he flies through the finish posts, the fireworks trigger an aneurysm and he goes limper than an overdosed crackhead. The super slo-mo shows him leaving the bike, machine and rider hitting the ground like a bag of potatoes, Slow Burn ragdolling like an octopus in a dryer. Tight closeup to his goggles that show eyes as empty as the pool of good ideas at the movie's pitch meeting. Which brings us to the sequel. Flash forward a year later. Through intensive therapy, chronicled in MTV-style slo-mo and fast cut, Slow Burn recovers just in time to make the Las Vegas finale. Nami is long gone. There is a new nemesis. His name is Scooter and he rides for the All Motorcycle Anarchists Pro Racing (AMA PRJ team. And it's not a Nami, it's a Mami. (The company slogan: "I want my Mami.") And his posse, a collection of like-minded individuals who've drunk the same Kool-Aid, and who procrastinate before making bafOing decisions that only make sense to themselves, calls itself The Board. The race is neck and neck for 20 laps, bumping and grinding and sweating, all set to impossibly loud techno music; essentially a gay bar on dirt. The Board is jumping up and down like kangaroos on a trampoline. On the final run to the flag, Scooter has a choice: Does he square up Slow Burn on the inside or does he use the berm to rail around him on the outside? At the most critical moment in his career, he's as frozen as Ted Williams' head. He's as helpless as a mime in a straightjacket: Making a sensible decision is his Kryptonite. And for one critical millisecond, he tenses up. Slow Burn brakechecks him into the Tuff Blocks. The checkered flies, Scooter comes in second. For reasons apparent only to them, The Board is ecstatic. It's a reaction no one saw coming. Their fearless leader has made a bad decision and they're oblivious to criticism. Naaah, no one would believe that. eN CYCLE NEWS • SEPTEMBER 7, 2005 87

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