One of the best girl casts of the year. You don't leave wanting to pick up the DVD, but you do want to pick up a set of dumbbells.
Comment
10/05/09
Whip It (2009)
82
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:142
Fresh:117
Rotten:25
Average Rating:7.1/10
Consensus: While made from overly familiar ingredients, Drew Barrymore's directorial debut has enough charm, energy, and good-natured humor to transcend its many cliches.
Rated: PG-13 [See Full Rating]
Genre: Comedies
Theatrical Release:Oct 2, 2009 Wide
Box Office: $12,994,912
Synopsis: Drew Barrymore makes her directorial debut with this feisty, female-friendly action-comedy. JUNO's Ellen Page stars as Bliss Cavendar, a young woman who longs to break free of her small-town bonds... [More]
Starring: Ellen Page, Marcia Gay Harden, Kristen Wiig, Drew Barrymore
Director: Drew Barrymore
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Reviews for Whip It
Roller derby is more than women in fishnet stockings on roller skates. But Whip It isn't.
10/01/09
Whip It is the kind of film that you can't quite recommend but certainly wouldn't begrudge other people for liking either.
10/01/09
Built upon a mountain of clichés, the screenplay wallows in artificiality and, although some of the sports action sequences are well choreographed and have a ring of authenticity, nearly every scene away from the arena reeks of contrivance.
10/02/09
Top CriticFor a film about a sport that involves lots of pushing, elbowing and bruising, Whip It is just too overwhelmingly nice.
10/01/09
Barrymore's budding directing skills are on dazzling display during the skating scenes . But given the lack of depth in the writing, promising characters are often rolled over and flattened out.
10/06/09
Whip It suggests what might have happened if Juno had gone to a high school as poky as Napoleon Dynamite's and decided that although her mother wanted her to be a beauty queen like Little Miss Sunshine, she'd rather just strap on roller skates.
09/30/09
Top CriticTo date, as an actress and producer, Barrymore has made some excellent choices and has always seemed to have a gut instinct for what works. Until now. The saving grace of the film is the disarmingly appealing Ellen Page who escapes unscathed.
10/08/09
Manages to make a sport about women on roller skates beating the crap out of each other tedious.
10/01/09
Page is ill-served by Barrymore, whose only directions apparently were shrieks of "Cuter! No, even cuter!"...turgid, predictable and not particularly funny.
09/29/09
Just sort of rolls by, with a lot of attitude but little that adds to the heap of stories about rebellious kids, close-minded parents and underdog sports teams.
10/01/09
The roller-derby action is as listless as the comic back-and-forth and the smarmy sentiment, but Barrymore at least proves she's no more mediocre than anyone else at directing such pap.
09/30/09
Drew Barrymore's directorial debut is a larky and ultimately disposable entertainment.
10/02/09
Screenwriter Shauna Cross dulls the edges of her novel Derby Girl, which the skate action and rockin' soundtrack can't disguise.
10/02/09
Top CriticThere's an extended sequence of underwater kissing that makes it seem that both Page and Pigg are mer-people. Seriously, they never come up for air as they make out in about 15 different positions. It's only the audience that's drowning.
10/01/09
It's just "Footloose" goes to the roller derby.
10/14/09
...a bloated, unfocused debut that does not know what it wants to be.
10/03/09
It’s virtually impossible to hate the film, but Barrymore’s presence behind the camera suggests more calculation than vision; like a lot of actors who direct, she tends to the performances, but her style never rises above bland proficiency.
10/01/09
Actor Ellen Page can do no wrong. Unfortunately director Drew Barrymore, screenwriter Shauna Cross, and cinematographer Robert D. Yeoman can.
09/19/09
It’s as if Napoleon Dynamite and Little Miss Sunshine strapped on skates and sailed right into some pat Hollywood comedy.
10/01/09
Top CriticLatest News for Whip It
October 01, 2009:
Critics Consensus: Zombieland Is Bloody Good
This week at the movies, we've got zombie zaniness (Zombieland, starring Woody Harrelson and Jesse Eisenberg); derby dolls (Whip it, starring Drew Barrymore and Ellen Page);... More...
October 01, 2009:
Whip It Good: Our Favorite Rollerskating Jams
As Gene Wilder's Willy Wonka so eloquently put it: "If the good lord had intended us to walk, he wouldn't have invented roller skates." Indeed. Yet while this week's Drew... More...
September 28, 2009:
Drew Barrymore Calls the Shots with Whip It 
Many years after a six-year-old Drew Barrymore handed Steven Spielberg a copy of her first script, she's ready to unveil her directorial debut with "Whip It." More...
July 19, 2009:
Trailer & Poster review
More...
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