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2015’s Spare Parts doesn’t break any new territory but offers a fairly light-hearted take on the “Stand and Deliver” genre movie. The story of four High School students, three undocumented immigrants from Mexico, taking on major scientific Universities in an underwater robotics competition AND WINNING, is a story that nearly writes itself.
It takes a team to build a dream, as the movie slogan states, but not all dreams work out exactly as imagined. The more interesting elements of the story of these young men are not contained in the movie itself. The movie finishes, as one would expect, at the moment of triumph, but what happened to the young men after is much more interesting. As a movie based on a true story, the immediate question arises..how much poetic license did the writers take in its creation. George Lopez plays the role of the teacher who is actually a combination of two real life people who supported the robotics club. His back story in the movie and sub plot are predictable and cliché. Frankly, the true story of the boys contained enough intrigue that his sub plot and love interest were all unnecessary.
Speaking of love interests, no one can deny the beauty of the ageless Marisa Tomei who plays the Lopez’s love interest. She gives a melodramatic speech to Lopez, in the supreme moment of contrived tension to close out an unnecessary subplot.
What is not lost in the movie is a great deal of humor. Jamie Lee Curtis has some great lines, and George Lopez does what he does best, be funny. Despite my initial trepidation in the formulaic nature of the movie before seeing it, I could not keep myself from being mildly amused throughout.
Overall I think this is a movie worth taking a look at. I really was interested in how they built their robot and think they didn’t pay enough attention to this fascinating element.
For more on the young men follow the link below to see what they are doing now. It really wasn’t the immediate life changing event of their lives that one would expect.
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