Jump IN!

Taking the lead of last year’s surprise teenybopper smash hit “High School Musical“, comes this all-new spunkin’ flick…JUMP IN!

Jump In! is the 68th Disney Channel Original Movie and premiered on January 12, 2007. The movie, starring Corbin Bleu from High School Musical and Keke Palmer from Akeelah and the Bee, revolves around a young boxer, Izzy Daniels (Bleu), who trains to follow in his father’s footsteps by winning the Golden Glove. When his friend, Mary (Palmer), however, asks him to substitute for a team member in a Double Dutch tournament, the young man discovers a hidden passion for jumping rope.

-Wikipedia

I watched this film out of curiosity, wanting to see how it managed to post an all-time high record of 8.2 million viewers, besting out the audience viewership numbers of last year’s two monster Disney hits “High School Musical” and “The Cheetah Girls 2″. I have seen the two movies, and they’re really really good. So, I had very high expectations for “Jump In!”.

The movie was off to a shaky start. And when I mean shaky…it’s really shaky! Corbin Bleu does this jumpin’-flippin’-and-prancin’-all-around-the-neighborhood thingy, which was quite annoying, to say the least. But…what the heck?! What other way should they introduce a film about jump roping best, apart from those jumpin’ jumpin’ sequences? None! So, that’s settled. Haha!

Moving on, the real fun only shows up when the “Double Dutch” game/sport (or whatever you may want to call it) gets to be introduced. (And that’s a record time of ten minutes starting from when the opening credits rolled. Hah!) In the following scenes, there’s this double dutch competition/tournament going on, where Keke Palmer (Mary) is one of the players. This is the turning point of the film, the time when Izzy (Corbin Bleu) discovers the world of jump roping…which will eventually become the reason why he’ll turn his back from being a boxer later in the movie. After that, our protagonist’s life will then go through a series of twists and turns, ups and downs — facing dilemmas, love angles forming, the nosy little sister butting in, getting humiliated by the kontrabidas, forgiving the kontrabidas, the kontrabidas turning good, making crucial choices about life and what he’s going to be, fixing everything, and then winning it all out in the end — very typical of the elements that inspirational sports movies usually contain these days. And by that, I’m not saying that it’s a bad thing…it’s actually good, ‘coz I’m a big sucker for these types of films.

Anyhoo, the film’s message is clearly stated throughout its entire running time: the extremely overused, but still very effective lesson of “being true to yourself“. To paraphrase a line from one of the prominent characters from the movie…”In life, we have to make choices. We must consider doing and choosing what will make us happy. Let us not care about what everybody else thinks, because those stuff will just hold us back.” (CHECK!!! Gee, I’m kind of…like, struck by lightning or something with that statement. You know, college…choosing courses and stuff like that, blah blahs. Anyway, I’d like to stop this before I get down to revealing anything maselan here, so let’s just go back to our discussion about the film. Enough is enough! Haha.) “Jump In!” teaches us to open our minds (and eyes too), to follow our hearts, and to set all of our inhibitions aside for us to achieve our goals in life.

You may expect the film to run just like your ordinary “teen-struggling-with-life” flick, but I tell you, it is so much more than that. It’s jam-packed with valuable lessons you can learn from the characters whom anyone can easily relate their lives to, which includes me of course…and it definitely exudes this certain “MAGIC” which has made viewers of all ages fall for countless other Disney films to date.

So, what are you waiting for? Jump IN!!!

Rating: 8.9/10

PS: Just like what I did with my High School Musical entry last year, I’ll feature one of the songs from the soundtrack of this movie for my next ‘Mood SINGS…” update. Stay tuned!!!