Heaven on wheels.
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10/01/09
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Whip It (2009)
82
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Reviews Counted:141
Fresh:116
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
Top CriticThere are no real villains here, just normal people making their way through life. And Bliss, while willful, is not horrible; she's just found something she needs to do, fishnets and all, and she's doing it.
10/01/09
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 CriticWhip It, set in the roller-derby subculture of Austin, is a sweet coming-of-age comedy, safe, familiar and comforting.
10/01/09
Top CriticIt goes to show what a good cast can do with certain types of material.
10/01/09
Barrymore has so thoroughly laced Whip It with her own lunatic affections for women and the human race in general that it ought to be sold as an antidepressant.
10/01/09
Top CriticIt’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
For a film about a sport that involves lots of pushing, elbowing and bruising, Whip It is just too overwhelmingly nice.
10/01/09
a welcome blast of grade-A Girl Power.
10/01/09
Barrymore's movie is as bubbly as she is, and its best feature is the atmosphere of all-girl camaraderie that she creates and captures.
10/01/09
Whip It is completely predictable from the first frame. It also is ridiculously, utterly entertaining.
10/01/09
Teeming with girl-power spirit, Barrymore’s film exudes an all-encompassing benevolence rather than strident one-upmanship. These girls just want to have fun.
10/01/09
An unexpected pleasure...goofily enjoyable.
10/01/09
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 cast is mostly female, the first-time director is Drew Barrymore, and the screenplay comes from Shauna Cross, based on her novel. But the teenage themes are universal: breaking from your parents, discovering yourself and following your bliss.
10/01/09
Yes, the movie has cliches. Yes, it all leads up to a big game. Yes, there is a character's validating appearance near the end. Yes, and so what? The movie is miles more intelligent than most of the cream-of-wheat marketed to teenage girls.
10/01/09
Top Critic[W]orks within Hollywood conventions of storytelling to handily demonstrate that just because a tale is familiar doesn't mean it can't be fresh and funny and edgy, too...
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
Barrymore has given the world something wonderful-- a brazenly feminist film that's a tremendous amount of fun.
09/30/09
What Barrymore brings is good-natured, girl-powered subversion, a sense of when to flaunt clichés and when to flip them over the rails.
09/30/09
Latest 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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