Invincible

During the long flight from North Carolina to San Francisco, I popped on a classic brainless movie while wrangling my two year old. Invincible is a great movie to watch without paying any real attention. This film is a vanilla sports triumph movie. It is based on a true story, which is a nice touch, but otherwise it does nothing particularly original. Also, the worst part of the movie is that it is about the Philadelphia Eagles, a franchise with possibly the worst fanbase in all of sports.

The characters in the movie are fine if incredibly uninspired. Mark Wahlberg plays a likeable guy in a tough circumstance, and almost every other character in his life is the exact same. There is one unlikeable friend, and a romantic interest who is a likeable girl in a (probably tough?) circumstance, although her backstory is mostly ignored. Greg Kinnear plays a new coach, and he and his wife are probably the most interesting characters in the movie? It’s hard to say, because we learn absolutely nothing about the wife, but at least she’s not a likeable guy (or girl) in tough circumstances. I can’t handle any more of them. They are all, of course, completely unlikeable as soon as the Philadelphia Eagles play, because they are Eagles fans.

The story is a classic Disney sports tale, in the spirit of Rocky, Rudy, Air Bud, Happy Gilmore and basically every other sports movie. Varsity Blues, Hoosiers, the Replacements. Major League, Rookie of the Year, and so on. Wahlberg is a nobody with nothing going for him, but he’s good at backyard football. He lives out his dream to be a professional football player, and we get to cheer him on along the way. It’s boring and predictable, and I could eat it up with a spoon. I’ll watch all of these movies on repeat and like it.

I’m giving it a 6 out of 10, but honestly my heart wants to give it a 7. I’ve seen it a bunch of times, and will watch it again in the future. This is just not an accurate reflection of the quality of the movie, just my love of completely predictable crowd pleasers.