Here Comes The Boom

 “What movie should we see?” My boyfriend asked me on Saturday night.

“I really wanna see ‘Here Comes the Boom,’” I replied, “It looked pretty good!”

“I’m not sure,” my boyfriend retorted, “After ‘Paul Blart: Mall Cop,’ it might suck.”

I feel like a lot of people felt this way after Kevin James’s last movie. That movie aside, I pushed to see it anyway. It turns out that this is the story of a 42-year-old biology teacher (James) who takes up MMA in order to save the music department at his ill-funded school with the help of a nerdy music teacher (Henry Winkler). He ends up getting a shot in the UFC, despite other obstacles along the way. I’m not going to spoil anything, but overall it was a great movie! This seems to be one of the only movies where James plays a semi-serious role and does it well. His character changes drastically throughout the movie, like a dynamic character in a book. Initially, he could care less about the school where he teaches, but when he realizes how many lives he’s touching through saving the music program, he changes his attitude and becomes a better teacher. On a different note, Henry Winkler’s character, the director of the orchestra, seems to take the place of the normal dorky character that James normally plays. There are multiple points in the movie where Winkler embarrasses James, but with good intentions of course. I found his awkwardness pretty ironic, considering Henry Winkler played Fonzie, one of the coolest characters to ever be on TV, in the series Happy Days.

Overall, I would highly suggest seeing this movie. It is inspirational to say the least, and it has more than a few funny moments. I found myself to be invested in the storyline and cheering at every point where James’ character succeeded. If that doesn’t make a great movie, I don’t know what does.