Here’s a postmortem ode to Motocrossed, which barely lost in round one to Brink!. Read our current featured matchup, Brink! vs. Halloweentown and vote for your favorites that are still in the running.
Motocrossed
Secret identities! Gender swapping! Dirt bike races! Sincere use of phrases such as “rap at you,” “gnarly” and “get the 411!”
If that doesn’t inspire a strange mix of delight, excitement, nostalgia and embarrassment that makes you want to simultaneously smile and cringe, then get out. Motocrossed isn’t for you. But neither is Brink! In fact, this whole thing probably isn’t up your alley. These are Disney Channel Original Movies we’re talking about. They aren’t the forgotten classics you should sincerely pine for; they’re the cinematic equivalent of the knockoff toys your grandma, who doesn’t really understand modern brands, would buy you for Christmas. They’re cheap and half the parts were defective, but you were too dumb to know any better and damn if you don’t still love the things anyway.
And oh, does Motocrossed ever hit the guilty-pleasure-nostalgia sweet spot. Anyone with fond, half-forgotten memories of the days when people still wore sunglasses that looked like they were from The Matrix and actually cared about things like The X-Games will most definitely experience a few flashbacks to sugar-addled afternoons trying to figure out how to do an ollie in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater (Clearly, I was pretty bad at Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater).
Most DCOMs deal with wish-fulfillment in one way or another, playing as extended riffs on a kid’s idle fantasy, and Motocrossed is no exception. It feels like a Mountain Dew-addled preteen’s idea of what the teen years are like: all very mild rebellion, chaste flirtations, ’N Sync concerts – yes, an ’N Sync concert is a significant plot point – and, of course, x-treme dirt bike races scored to songs that sound like they were written by Hanson on a lunch break.
So, enter the Carson family, who are all really, really into motocross, which is kind of like NASCAR’s even-dumber cousin. There’s the patriarchal, overbearing father, who becomes the source of most of the film’s oh-so-sweet family melodrama; a blandly supportive mother; a firstborn son set to take over the father’s racing business; a daughter who loves bikes as much as cheerleading; and a youngest son who’s written as some kind of adorable gearhead, if such a thing exists, but looks more like Joffrey Baratheon’s wimpier little brother.
But Motocrossed is a product of the Clinton era (technically, its February 2001 release date means it just barely missed that administration, but, like most DCOMs, it feels a good 5 or 10 years older than it is) and that means it needs its share of awkwardly earnest “we are all equal” progressivism in addition to its many other delicious flavors of cheese. So, it’s not older brother Andrew who’s the hero, it’s sister Andrea, who has to pass for a dude in order to race.
The film’s heart is in the right place, but the results are frequently hilarious. And thank god – there’s even a wonderfully terrible version of the “there’s nothing in the rulebook that says dogs can’t play basketball!” scene from Air Bud, but with basketball replaced by motocross and dogs replaced by girls. That combination of absurd, straight-to-DVD plotting and a poorly expressed, if well-meaning, message is as pure an expression of the Disney Channel ethos as they come.
I’m not going to argue that Motocrossed is the best DCOM. But the very idea of “best” runs counter to the spirit of the Disney Channel. This is a contest about which movie is the most ludicrous, awkward, earnest, hilarious and flat-out crazy. You’re not nostalgic for DCOMs because they’re particularly good; you’re nostalgic for DCOMs because they remind you of a time when you didn’t know or care if something was particularly good and could enjoy it all the more for its lunacy. And Motocrossed – which features a purportedly heterosexual love interest named Dean Talon (because if BMX doesn’t work out he could always try becoming a stripper or a Marvel superhero) who seems awfully pissed to find out that the guy he’s been flirting with pretty hard is actually a girl – has lunacy to spare.
Maybe I haven’t convinced you. But let me say this: If I know one thing, in my heart of hearts, it’s that rollerblading is dumber than motocross.
–Robert Gifford
