Brothers Trip and K.C. Carlyle have big dreams.
A pair of young motorcycle racers with nothing more than raw talent and each other, theirs is the story of two endearing underdogs with a burning ambition. Striving to make good on their father’s fallen dream of becoming a Supercross champion, the two race their way to stardom, kicking up dust and popping wheelies at literally every turn.
They skid. They soar. They flip. They fall. In fact, a hefty portion of the film is nothing more than one rip-roaring racing scene after another. And when they’re not biking, they’re arguing about biking—which gives way to a rather uninventive “good brother/bad brother” polarization. K.C. is a traditional, straight-laced “old-school” lad, contrasted by Trip, a “freestyle” bad boy. K.C. pursues the road to success the safe way with corporate sponsorship, while Trip remains a “privateer” (that’s racing slang for an independent competitor).
Of course, in the end, K.C. decides the only way to realize his father’s dream is to do it on his own, and so he leaves his sponsors behind and rides off into the sunset with Trip. They brazenly take on the big shots, and to avoid ruining the film’s not-so-big finale, let’s just say there aren’t many surprises.
K.C. tries to watch out for Trip, whose tendencies lean toward irresponsible. Likewise, Trip is willing to sacrifice his own success to help his brother. They stick together even when pride and egos threaten to tear them apart. When K.C. wins a race, Trip exclaims, “You did it! You did it!” to which K.C. modestly replies, “We did it.”
K.C. promises to be faithful to girlfriend, Zoe, even as fame begins to draw scantily-clad groupies his way. On the whole, K.C. is a pretty righteous dude (read: mostly moral), and both of the brothers show dedication to their “craft” and a strong work ethic.
There’s not much respect for the fairer sex in Supercross. Close-up shots of women in short shorts flash throughout the movie. Braless groupies abound at every race. Cleavage is abundant, and some of the gaga girls save paper by getting autographs from their favorite racer right on their skin (on bellies and above barely covered breasts). One racer licks a lady’s chest after he signs her. Another knowingly hits on a married woman.
Trip’s girlfriend, Piper, has Trip help her strip down to her underwear and later allows Trip to take her shirt off while making out (she’s braless; the camera focuses on her back). They snuggle and kiss, as do K.C. and Zoe. When they first meet, Piper flirtatiously tells Trip to “stop staring at my a–.”
Racers take some hard falls, and some deliberately cause their opponents to crash. We don’t see any serious injuries until the end of the film, when Trip has an accident and ends up hospitalized. Trip tries to defend K.C., pushing and coming to blows with an aggressive racer before the fight is broken up.
Racers use a half-dozen s-words, and “a–” is used about 10 times. “B–ch” and harsh slang for male anatomy is heard, and God’s and Jesus’ names are misused a handful of times.
Trip orders a beer at a bar, where there’s drinking and smoking going on in the background. Both Trip and K.C. drink beer at their apartment, however when Trip goes into some intense training with Earl Cole, he’s told there can be “no booze and no drugs.”
No racing movie would be complete without side bets, which Trip makes twice. The first time he bets money that Piper never makes him fork over; the second time he loses his truck and goes to jail for street racing. When the brothers get a friend to modify their bikes for a race, he admits he steals tires for his clients.
It’s as if skateboarding flick Lords of Dogtown is back again—this time on two wheels. Why? Only a Supercross enthusiast would know for sure. Slant Magazine calls Supercross: The Movie “nothing but a Clear Channel shill.” (Clear Channel is a promoter of Supercross racing and, according to Slant, “one of the film’s major sponsors.”) Lisa Rose, writing for the Newark Star-Ledger, calls it “dumb as dirt, heavy on decibels and crazed with sales plugs.” Hollywood Reporter‘s Michael Rechtshaffen dubs it “Supercross-promotion: The Movie.”
Rest assured, though, that this 80-minute commercial won’t be in theaters very long. Once the extreme-sport-loving crowd gets its fix, this completely unmemorable film (from just about every perspective I can think of—its script, its cast, its performances, its direction and its moral) is sure to race out of the multiplex faster than a Supercross jock can say “faceplant.” And that’s just as well, considering its inclusion of vulgar language and slack sexuality.
