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Roll Bounce (2005)

tomatometer

64

Average Rating: 5.9/10
Reviews Counted: 88
Fresh: 56 | Rotten: 32

Roll Bounce dazzles us with a classic late 1970's feel, but this coming of age film could have been more than just a spin around the roller rink.

57

Average Rating: 5.7/10
Critic Reviews: 28
Fresh: 16 | Rotten: 12

Roll Bounce dazzles us with a classic late 1970's feel, but this coming of age film could have been more than just a spin around the roller rink.

audience

73

liked it
Average Rating: 3.4/5
User Ratings: 55,020

My Rating

Movie Info

A handful of inner-city kids move up to the big time in this teen-centric musical. Xavier Smith (Bow Wow), known to his friends as X, is a teenager growing up on the South Side of Chicago in the late '70s. X and his buddies are the hotshot skaters at the Palisades Gardens, a neighborhood roller rink where local kids roll to the latest disco sounds, but X loses his status as king of the hill when the Palisades closes down. With no skating action close by, X and his friends head uptown to the

PG-13, 1 hr. 47 min.

Drama, Comedy

Norman Vance

Dec 13, 2005

$17.4M

Fox Searchlight Pictures

Cast

All Critics (98) | Top Critics (28) | Fresh (58) | Rotten (33) | DVD (11)

Sometimes a film wins you over with its sheer exuberance and sweetness.

September 26, 2005 Full Review Source: Ebert & Roeper | Comment
Ebert & Roeper
Top Critic IconTop Critic

It will remind you what it was like to be a teenager during the last few days of summer. And even though the plot is a little thin, you probably won't even notice until long after the music stops.

September 23, 2005 Full Review Source: San Francisco Chronicle | Comment
San Francisco Chronicle
Top Critic IconTop Critic

A movie made in the spirit of: what the world needs now is a bit of innocent diversion.

September 23, 2005 Full Review Source: Toronto Star | Comment
Toronto Star
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If it doesn't exactly kick out the jams, it does move them around a little bit.

September 23, 2005 Full Review Source: USA Today | Comment
USA Today
Top Critic IconTop Critic

The film can't get its rhythms right, fluctuating wildly between comedy and pathos.

September 23, 2005 Full Review Source: Washington Post | Comment
Washington Post
Top Critic IconTop Critic

It's a movie that resists not just the temptations of the day, it resists doing or saying anything even moderately interesting about adolescence, single parenthood or a simpler time.

September 23, 2005 Full Review Source: Orlando Sentinel | Comment
Orlando Sentinel
Top Critic IconTop Critic

For the most part though, the honesty of the performances keeps everything afloat when it could drift into easy sentimentality.

April 25, 2011 Full Review Source: ComingSoon.net | Comment
ComingSoon.net

Mostly innocuous, sometimes tedious, mostly fine for young teens and up.

July 10, 2008 Full Review Source: Common Sense Media | Comment
Common Sense Media

For some reason, teasing people about their skin color has become a big theme of brainless black comedies like this. Plus, it unfolds like one long Pepsi ad, with dialogue extolling the cola's virtues in virtually every scene.

May 7, 2007 Full Review Source: BlackNews.com | Comments (3)
BlackNews.com

For some reason, teasing people about their skin color and ethnicity has become a big theme of brainless black comedies like this.

May 7, 2007 Full Review Source: Mount Desert Islander | Comment
Mount Desert Islander

Worthy of a 99-cent rental, if only so you can witness the howlingly awful performance by Wesley Jonathan as a self-appointed roller-disco mega-lord called "Sweetness." Kid had me in tears, I swear.

December 10, 2005 Full Review Source: DVDTalk.com | Comment (1)
DVDTalk.com

Nothing about this film is as cathartic as it tries to make itself because the characters just aren't that absorbing. Instead of tugging your heart, it just spits in your eye.

December 6, 2005 Full Review Source: Film Threat | Comment
Film Threat

This is the 40th "skating movie" to hit the screens since Charlie Chaplin's The Rink (1915). It is neither the best nor the worst of them - skater dudes may think its cool, but 25 years ago there was the much maligned Xanadu with ELO, ONJ and (sigh!) stil

December 6, 2005 Full Review Source: Urban Cinefile | Comment (1)
Urban Cinefile

A spunky, fun little film.

October 13, 2005 Full Review | Comment
Northwest Herald (Crystal Lake, IL)

It would take a critic more churlish than this one to sneer and bare chickenlike talons at Roll Bounce

October 8, 2005 Full Review Source: New Times | Comment
New Times

The skating routines are a lot of fun to watch, filled with great choreography and backed by great tunes.

October 6, 2005 Full Review Source: Film Journal International | Comment
Film Journal International
More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for Roll Bounce

I loved the detail in this movie, it really game it a 70's feel. All in all it's a fun film with some good smiles and laughs.

October 31, 2011
Eric Alvarez

Super Reviewer

Oh Meagen Good, I melt just seeing your lips, god! This movie was very good and it really made me feel young again. 1970s roller-skate jams fuel this coming-of-age comedy, as X and his friends, who rule their local rink, are shocked when their home base goes out of business. Heading over to the Sweetwater Roller Rink,

February 4, 2010
xXGiNoBiLiPRXx
Manu Gino

Super Reviewer

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