Basketball Movie Review
Thunderstruck
Kevin Durant loses his talent to a teenager through magical nonsense, which is a workable commercial premise and not remotely enough material for a good basketball movie.
KD is KD, the concept is a kid-friendly gag and almost everything around it is replacement-level. Basketball curiosity more than basketball classic.
Movie details
2012 · 1h 34m · Comedy · Family
Director John Whitesell
- Kevin Durant
- Taylor Gray
- Brandon T. Jackson
- Jim Belushi
- Kevin Durant plays himself as an Oklahoma City Thunder superstar whose talent is accidentally transferred to a teenager.
- The movie landed in 2012, the same year Durant and Oklahoma City reached the NBA Finals for the first time.
01
The Take
Thunderstruck takes the Like Mike fantasy and reverses the transaction: instead of magical shoes creating NBA talent, a teenager accidentally steals Kevin Durant's. There is a clean little lesson about confidence and work buried in there, but the movie is too thin and broad to make much of it. This is catalogue completion material, not a hidden gem.
02
Does the Basketball Hold Up?
The obvious advantage is having actual Kevin Durant on screen. The obvious disadvantage is that the entire premise requires him to become bad at basketball while somebody else becomes impossibly good. The contrast is the joke, but it also means the most credible basketball player in the film spends much of it deliberately looking wrong.
03
Best Basketball Moment
Any brief stretch where Durant gets to look like Durant again. The movie accidentally reminds you that watching the real thing is much more interesting than the magic trick.
04
Ball Cred
Kevin Durant in his Oklahoma City era is the credibility. Almost everything else is fantasy built around him, which is why this sits at the bottom end of the DOUNOBALL scale.