ratliffl@lopers.unk.edu
The Kearney Special Olympics team had a showing of the new movie “Champions” on March 28. The movie is a comedy about a former NBL coach who is court ordered to coach a special olympics basketball team.
It is an english remake of a Spanish movie of the same name that came out in 2018. The original movie was partially based on the story of the Aderes, a basketball team from Spain with mental disabilities that won 12 championships.
When I went, The World Theatre was packed like I have never seen before. The entire audience was also highly invested in the movie, cheering, booing, laughing and clapping to the things that happened. It was an energy that I have never seen while at the movies and it vastly improved the experience.
The movie stars Woody Harrelson and Kaitlin Olsen as the leads of the film. I have been a fan of Harrelson for a while with my favorite of his movies being “Zombieland.”
I also like Olsen’s role in “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”, but that was one of few problems with the movie for me. I kept seeing her character in “Champions” as the one she plays in “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” , and she plays an awful person in that show. Despite that, the casting of the movie had me excited for it.
I do not want to talk about the movie’s plot too much since I don’t want to reveal the best parts, but I would rate the movie four Lopers out of five because of the casting and heartfelt message.
The movie surprised me with how good it was. Harrelson’s character, the coach mentioned earlier, had a very generic but genuine character arc where he slowly learned to appreciate and fight for his basketball team, the Friends.
I cannot speak enough about how good the environment of the theater was. It immersed me into the movie more since the people around me were far more affected by it than you would usually see.
For instance, in the scene where Harrelson’s character gets his court order to coach the Friends he uses the R word to address the team, and this was immediately followed by booing from the crowd. Later that scene he asked the judge what he should call “them” and someone from the crowd yelled “their names!” The judge said the same thing, then the crowd clapped.
This emotional investment from the crowd made the movie far more important and impactful, but I think the movie would still uphold its quality even outside theaters.
