Spare Parts (2015)

Based on how this was hyped, it now appears incredibly controversial as to why the Carl Hayden High School won this competition. In the actual underwater challenge they finished 3rd behind MIT which completed the most challenges. So in effect MIT still had the best robot but since the competition also factored in their engineering interview and a review of each group's technical manual they somehow won the entire competition. I am incredibly suspicious that MIT did a worse job in the engineering interview or with their technical manual. Not buying this since at the end of the day the robot that can complete the most challenges should be the winning robot. This challenge is supposed to show who are the better engineers not who are the better salesmen. Sorry but it seems like it was handed to them.

Further evidence this is misleading BS. If the Carl Hayden Team was really full of engineering geniuses they would be employed as such.

Carl Hayden Team (Luis Aranda, Lorenzo Santillan, Cristian Arcega, Oscar Vazquez)

Where are these engineering geniuses now?

Luis Aranda (Janitor); Lorenzo Santillan (Line Cook); Cristian Arcega (Worked at Home Depot); Oscar Vazquez (Railroad Foreman)

MIT Team (Kurt Stiehl, Lauren Cooney, Jordan Stanway, Thaddeus Stefanov- Wagner)

Kurt Stiehl (Product Design Manager at Apple Inc.); Lauren Cooney (Embedded Software Engineer at Teledyne Webb Research); Jordan Stanway (Postdoctoral Fellow at Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute); Thaddeus Stefanov-Wagner (Mechanical Engineer at Bluefin Robotics)

Fmovies: Loved the story line. I love true to life stories. They never get old. I loved that it was touching, funny, dramatic, inspirational. Just a lot like life.

It made me realize that the State of Arizona suppresses and punishes the same people that gave the state glory and honor.

The state should realize that instead of punishing the kids they should be helping and supporting them.

Their population is aging (it is a retirement state) and the next generation of workers and taxpayers would be the undocumented, so they should start training their workforce now. The state already started to do this by teaching these kids since they were in elementary or high school. Why stop now?

I found the rating of this movie to be over reaching. While the cast was an interesting blend, I just didn't feel much of the characters fit. Lopez didn't feel like he connected at all, and many of the scenes were very forced.

I really appreciate that this is a true story, but I felt the acting (or maybe the directing) was just off point. the 5 stars are simply for the story told.

I will say Esai Morales, José Julián, and Marisa Tomei did a pretty good job for their roles, they felt believable. I was surprised that Jamie Lee Curtis went for the role she did, while it was completely believable, there were some parts that had me going "really? ...why would she do that?" Carlos PenaVega was believable but the acting fell short in many cases, again forced emotions and sloppy writing for certain situations. Young actors are often caught posing and much like project almanac, often blank or shy smiling in moments that don't call for it.

Spare Parts fmovies. We all love a good underdog story, especially one that rings true – because it is. And all the better when that story gives us characters portrayed more deeply than just people generally frustrated by life who are simply trying to do one great thing. Then, on top of all that, if the film can explore an important social issue – and still be entertaining, well, what more can you ask? "Spare Parts" (PG-13, 1:23) does all that and more.

This film centers on four Hispanic high schoolers who were made famous by a "Wired" magazine article after they entered a national underwater robotics competition against major colleges and did better than anyone expected. The four teenage boys each bring something vital to the table. There's the robotics enthusiast – and group leader – Oscar (Carlos PenaVega), the computer genius, Christian (David Del Rio), the mechanics expert, Lorenzo (José Julián) and Luis (Oscar Gutierrez), the strong but silent type whose brawn is needed to lift the robot out of the water at the competition, but ends up contributing more than just his muscles to the team. Each of these young men is being hindered from making something of himself by serious problems in his personal life. Luis is treated by everyone as if his size and quiet manner equates to a lack of intelligence, Christian is constantly bullied, Lorenzo is expected by his harsh and demanding father (Esai Morales) to make keeping his younger brother out of trouble his purpose in life and Oscar dreams of joining the Army, but is denied because he lacks the necessary documents. That brings us to the problem that all four boys share – they are undocumented residents of the United States, brought here as young children by their parents. Each boy is constantly looking over his shoulder for immigration authorities as he tries to live his life and do right by himself and his family.

In addition to each team member's personal issues, there are interpersonal issues between some of them. It would take a strong person to get these guys to work together and help them achieve something special, in spite of their personal challenges. Enter Fredi Cameron (George Lopez), an engineer with a PhD who is having trouble finding a long-term job and settles for a position as a substitute teacher, which includes supervising the engineering club. At first reluctant to get involved in the personal lives of the students, he is sympathetic to their situations and recognizes that they all need someone to guide them – and believe in them. But he's not in this alone. He makes friends with another teacher (Marisa Tomei) who has some talents of her own to contribute to the team – and helps Dr. Cameron see the importance of the position he is in. He's also backed up by a tough, but caring principal, played by Jamie Lee Curtis. With the talent, the desire and the support to do something special, the team does their best to work through their individual challenges, get past their personal differences, and become a team that can raise the money to build their robot and hold their own in the competition.

"Spare Parts" could have been a run-of-the-mill underdog story, but it becomes something both broader and deeper than you might expect. By exploring each character's individual challenges, we get a sense of who each of these young men are – and likely end up identifying with one or more of them, regardless of whether we can relate to the specifics of their respective situations. By showing us the obstacles that

What, you thought this movie was about a group of high school kids who put together a robot and competed against some of the best teams in the world? Well, it's really only partially about that.

In terms of acting, I thought everyone did great, although the kids came off as being some of the whitest Mexican kids I've ever seen. George Lopez fit the role well enough even though he really came off as more of a coach than a science teacher. Still, I'm glad to see him doing movies, as I never cared much for his TV show and I do like the guy, he has a good presence on the screen.

Filming and scene choreography and editing are all fairly well done. You won't get any of the scene jumping or hard to follow nonsense that you sometimes get from other movies. This one is put together nicely and the story flows well. It's inspiring.

Aside from the story, the movie spends a great deal of time commenting on the state of illegal immigration here in the U.S. To say that this doesn't belong in the review of the movie is wrong, since the movie is clearly about that. And how could it not be? With George Lopez and Marisa Tomei teaming up to make witty punches at conservative ideals for most of it. Demonizing conservatives in the movies has always been a favorite strategy of the left.

As I identify as conservative, and since the first punch has already been thrown, I'd like to take just a second to be clear about where most conservatives stand on immigration: not all of us believe that every illegal should be deported. We believe in a 2-step solution.

1. It is clear that Pandora's box has already been opened for the past 40 years. When you have children growing up in the U.S., in our schools, and being educated as U.S. citizens, then it's time to let those kids stay here and give them the citizenship that they should have. A selective and partial amnesty makes sense.

2. This solution must coincide with the effective sealing of the border, a task that no president or congress, Republican or Democrat, has been willing to do. That is the key element to solving this problem, and that is what most conservatives at the ground level feel needs to be done.

Some of the other reviews and comments have also indicated a few subtle skewings to the truth of the story. Apparently in actuality there were two teachers for the robotics club and neither of them were Latino. Their robot also finished third in the applied contest, which I find to be a strange change to the story as it would have been easy to simply tell it the way it was.

But all politics and subtle skewings aside, this was a very good movie. Inspiring and well made, and fun to watch. I recommend it.

Thank you for reading.

Strange how these sort of "feel good" films -- based on actual events -- used to be more commonplace... and now have somehow become an endangered species..? SPARE PARTS is a serious film. By that I mean they used name stars and gave the film a full 2 hour running length. (Lately you can tell more about a film by the length than any other statistic -- the ones that clock in at exactly 1:25 are usually done on the cheap, intended to be sold to TV right away).

It might not win any Oscars but it is solid entertainment with no hiccoughs or offbeat moments.

For this reviewer, the oddest thing was identifying the "glue." In every story there is a character that the audience comes to identify with, and the actions of this key character often set the tone for how the audience will respond to the whole story.

What was interesting here is that the "glue" was Marisa Tomei, who is both the conscience and the heart of the film -- yet she does not have as much camera time as some of the other characters. She does an outstanding job of grounding the story, from beginning to end.

Highly recommended.