'Akeelah': Meet the Rocky of the spelling-bee world

Robert Denerstein, Rocky Mountain News

Published April 28, 2006 at midnight

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The plot of Akeelah and the Bee may feel a trifle familiar, but here's the surprise: This is one time when familiarity doesn't breed contempt.

Akeelah finds its appeal in telling the satisfying story of a bright 11-year-old girl who attends a tough Los Angeles middle school where academic achievement is not highly prized. As it happens, Akeelah has a knack for spelling.

Like the popular 2002 documentary Spellbound, Akeelah concludes at the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington. And like that documentary, it has you rooting for kids to spell words that aren't for those who are vocabulary-challenged. (Come on, admit it - you, too, have difficulty understanding why anyone should know how to spell synecdoche.)

The film works as a drama because it layers a variety of complexities into its mix. Akeelah, nicely played by Keke Palmer, must overcome long odds as a speller. Not only must she learn a bunch of new words, but she must accept the notion that she can become a standout. She also must convince her mother (Angela Bassett) that time spent practicing for various bees isn't a waste.

She has help in this regard. Laurence Fishburne, who starred with Bassett in the Ike-and-Tina Turner drama What's Love Got To Do With It, signs on as a stern professor who agrees to coach Akeelah. He's not interested in her tough facade, and he won't allow her to talk the language of her peers.

Director Doug Atchison may not have the most deft touch when it comes to pushing buttons, but he gets close enough to keep Akeelah on track. And the movie manages to cast its spell without sacrificing all realism. One of Akeelah's teachers (Dalia Phillips) and her principal (Curtis Armstrong) want her to excel, partly to bring much-needed glory to their beleaguered school.

To practice spelling, Akeelah travels to an affluent neighborhood where she meets kids who face fewer obstacles in their quest for greatness. Dylan (Sean Michael Afable) is driven by a relentless father (Ttzi Ma), a situation that paves the way for Akeelah to face an ethical decision about whether winning should be the ultimate objective.

Palmer does an effective and moving job in a role that basically requires her to appear in every scene, and if, by the end, Akeelah allows some of its contrivances to show, so be it.

Atchison seems to have put his heart into a movie that's both entertaining and, heaven help us, good for us. Besides, when's the last time you saw a whole neighborhood get behind a kid who can spell and cheer her as if she were Rocky?

Akeelah and the Bee

An 11-year-old spells her way to glory

• Grade: B

• Rating: PG

• Running time: 112 minutes

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