Man, after skimming the first 20 or so comments, I get the feeling that I am a minority in my opinion of this film; I found that it was pretty much the most boring movie that I have ever seen. I like ice hockey and I even played it a little in college, but that alone was not enough to hold my interest in this film.
I rented it thinking that it was supposed to be a dramatic comedy, but the jokes were so few and far between (and even then, few of the jokes were funny) that I soon realized that it was no comedy. I also didn't find it very dramatic - you can't really identify with the characters, there are too many players and too little time.
I didn't even make the connection between this film and Rocky until reading another user's review just now. The difference is that in Rocky, you follow the life of a single man very closely, you really get into the fact that he is poor, lives in the slums of New York, a real underdog who suddenly has a shot, and from the beginning he pours his entire life into his chance to be recognized, to rise up as a true underdog.
But in Mystery, Alaska, you don't really get that feeling of the underdog that rises from the top against seemingly impossible odds. They try to make an entire town into an underdog, and it's just hard to identify with that. After getting a deal dropped in its lap, the town ends up acting like a bunch of bickering stooges, and then at the end they play a hockey game against the New York Rangers. By the time they got to the game, I didn't even care if they won or lost.
Another major difference is that Rocky Balboa was likeable; during the film you really get to know him and realize that he's a good man living a rough life. In contrast, most of the people in the town of Mystery acted like a bunch of jerks, I really didn't like any of them. I could feel some empathy when I saw Rocky, but I didn't give a crap about any of these Mystery hockey players.
The only positive thing that I can say about the film is that the acting was good. But that's not enough to make a good movie. Mystery, Alaska is nothing more than a boring waste of good acting talent.
I rented it thinking that it was supposed to be a dramatic comedy, but the jokes were so few and far between (and even then, few of the jokes were funny) that I soon realized that it was no comedy. I also didn't find it very dramatic - you can't really identify with the characters, there are too many players and too little time.
I didn't even make the connection between this film and Rocky until reading another user's review just now. The difference is that in Rocky, you follow the life of a single man very closely, you really get into the fact that he is poor, lives in the slums of New York, a real underdog who suddenly has a shot, and from the beginning he pours his entire life into his chance to be recognized, to rise up as a true underdog.
But in Mystery, Alaska, you don't really get that feeling of the underdog that rises from the top against seemingly impossible odds. They try to make an entire town into an underdog, and it's just hard to identify with that. After getting a deal dropped in its lap, the town ends up acting like a bunch of bickering stooges, and then at the end they play a hockey game against the New York Rangers. By the time they got to the game, I didn't even care if they won or lost.
Another major difference is that Rocky Balboa was likeable; during the film you really get to know him and realize that he's a good man living a rough life. In contrast, most of the people in the town of Mystery acted like a bunch of jerks, I really didn't like any of them. I could feel some empathy when I saw Rocky, but I didn't give a crap about any of these Mystery hockey players.
The only positive thing that I can say about the film is that the acting was good. But that's not enough to make a good movie. Mystery, Alaska is nothing more than a boring waste of good acting talent.