After Spellbound and Bee Season, how many more spelling bee movies do we need? If they're as good as Akeelah and the Bee, keep 'em coming. Maybe this will turn into its own sub-sports genre, like the boxing film. Even though the spelling bee involves study and intelligence, it's really all about competition.
Little Keke Palmer gives a wonderful, weighty performance as 11-year-old Akeelah, living in a crummy neighborhood in south Los Angeles, where her single mom (Angela Bassett) is too busy to keep tabs on her. Thanks to her late father (shot to death while coming home from work), Akeelah has a passion and a talent for spelling. When her dreary little school gets wind of this, they enter the reluctant girl in the bee and pair her with a coach, the stern Dr. Larabee (Laurence Fishburne).
This being a PG family film, it's not too hard to guess the outcome. Second-time helmer Doug Atchison milks the scenario for all the honey drips he can, including a needless, weepy subplot for Larabee. But somehow his skilled touch massages right through the knotty bits and leaves even the most hardened moviegoer in a state of blissful surrender.
Atchison coaxes rich, rounded performances from his cast, both adult and youngster. Usually in these types of movies, adults are reduced to dolts and fools, but Fishburne gives us a tweedier version of his Matrix's Morpheus, an even-toned mentor who eventually learns from his student. And though the busy working mom can turn into a one-note character, Bassett gives this one a beautiful gravity. This is family filmmaking at its finest.