Because ESPN tells me spelling is a sport, which therefore means these kids are athletes, this is a movie review of a sports film.

But to be serious, no, spelling is not a word. However, the movie was really funny and Jason Bateman did a great job in his first directing gig. As the movie suggests, the film has a lot of profanity but it helped carry the storyline. Even though it took a long time to figure out why a 40-year-old man would enter into a children’s spelling bee, the journey and emotion was delivered very well.

I really appreciate that the movie balanced Bateman’s character with those of the children. Both had different goals in the competition but sometimes, do we push ourselves because we want to or because there’s an outside pressure telling us we have to? Much like sports, who’s pushing us to win? Do we win for ourselves or do we win to not let others down?

Aside from that aspect, the movie also taught us great ways to play mind games with the opposition. If only the people I play sports with had such feeble minds I could psyche them out.

But overall, the film was funny and it had a good message. For a comedy, it had a good foundation.

The movie doesn’t hit nationwide yet but I did attend the red carpet premiere in Hollywood this evening. It was a really nice set up.

They even passed out these placards for us, though I didn’t write anything.

Following the movie, the two starts of the film came out. Kathryn Hahn did stop to take some pictures while Bateman had to be escorted from the mob to his car.