The plot is as cookie cutter and cliche as the term "cookie-cutter". Rick Moranis plays Danny O'Shea, a meek and nerdy gas station owner with a tomboy daughter named Becky, aka "Icebox". His older brother is Kevin O'Shea, hotshot ex-football star, car dealership owner and town celebrity. Growing up, he always excluded Danny from playing football and Danny forever lived in his shadow. Now that they are grown, and Kevin turned out to be the bigshot and Danny still the wimpy nerd, Kevin is in charge of the town's pee-wee football team, and stacks it with hotshot players. Well, as hotshot as a group of ten year olds can be. When he fails to select his own niece, due to the fact that she is a girl, Danny and Becky decide to form their own ragtag team of misfits called the Little Giants to battle Kevin's Cowboys in a match-up to determine the town's football team. If you can't figure out how this movie ends, you deserve to be shot.
Let me be the first to say this movie has no shortage of awful dialogue or stereotypical characters. My favorite is Kevin's assistant coach, the lunkhead Coach Butz. Imagine Johnny's two flunkies in "The Karate Kid" rolled into one jelly doughnut of a man and you have Coach Butz. If you can think of any bullying insult that has been used in any movie like this, chances are Coach Butz spews it in this movie. Case in point: when Danny is questioning Kevin on why is daughter didn't get picked, Danny says, "Come on, everyone deserves a chance to play." Butz then responds, with a weasely little laugh, "Not on this team!" Butz is the typical sidekick lackey with mush for brains, evidenced when him and Kevin try spying on the Giants, and thinks he's stumbled upon their super secret play, when in fact they are just standing around.
Every character in this movie is a walking stereotype: you have Zolteck, the gassy fat kid who eats alot; Johnny, the kid who's dad is never around because he's always gone on business, maybe he shoulda been friends with Zach Morris; pretty boy quarterback Junior Floyd; Berman, the nerd with the overprotective mom who thinks he is allergic to anything and everything; Hot Hands Hanon, the slick talking black kid who also happens to be a shitty wide receiver....the list goes on and on.
There's so much more to this movie than the actual story at hand. Take the character of "Rad" Tad Simpson, a pipsqueak who stands about four feet tall, weighs about sixty pounds soaking wet. In the opening tryouts scene, he is wearing one of those BAD-ASS shark attack shirts that were all the rage in the early '90's. You know what I'm talking 'bout...the one's with the shark on the front with a couple rips in the side to make it look like a shark bit you. RIGHTEOUS shirt and great call by the costume director. Tad was otherwise about as useful as a nun's vagina in the grand scheme of things but I will never, ever foget that shirt.
Then you have Becky "The Icebox" O'Shea. She is played by Shawna Waldron, and is portrayed as a real tomboy/closet dyke in the film. The name "Icebox" was supposed to be an homage to William "The Refrigerator" Perry, but I like to think it was a sly term cooked up by the writers in a reference to her feminine parts, since she was such a tomboy, not interested in boys, you get where I'm going with this? Anyway she turned out to be a super babe and shows her breasts in "Poison Ivy 3" so do yourself a favor and check that out. Here's a pic of her to tide you over:
"Hey Spike, the Icebox is gonna defrost you!"--Junior Floyd, before the big game...I'd let her defrost me.
Ok another classic part of this movie is SPIKE. When the Giants are looking for that last piece of the puzzle to make them a winner, Rick Moranis receives a tip about SPIKE, a new kid in town the size of an ox. He carries refrigerators around on his back, does pull-ups on his dad's biceps and apparently, his father "massages his hamstrings every night with evaporated milk" so good chance his dad is also cornholing him. There never was a mother mentioned. SPIKE is a genetic freak, and when him and Icebox have their initial staredown he warns her that when you "mess with SPIKE, you're messing with DEATH!" Heady talk for a children's movie, but Spike is one bad motherfucker. I still wouldn't mess with Spike to this day, matter of fact. Doing some research for this review, I saw he was a contestant on season 4 of "Beauty and the Geek". Kinda loses some of his world-beating aura, but, he'll always be Spike to me.
"SPIKE'S IN HELL...SPIKE'S IN PEE-WEE HELL!" (fuck you IMDB for not letting me post the picture, gotta click the link)
Another thing this movie has going for it is the cameos by NFL stars like John Madden, Emmitt Smith, Bruce Smith, Tim Brown and Steve Emtman, who look like they'd rather be doing anything else than be in this movie. I especially loved Bruce Smith's wooden delivery in his speech on intimidation, and the fact that his scary face looked more like someone about to burst into laughter.
I could make fun of this movie more, there's so much material to mine, but I'll leave that up to you. Fact is, it was a fun part of my childhood, and many a football game where played in the street or over at San Carlos where I would use lines from this movie. If you ever tried to use the "Annexation of Puerto Rico" in a football game as a kid, then this flick is for you. Some douchebag posted the whole thing on youtube, so go on over and do yourself a favor and watch it tonight.
Little Kevin: Danny, look at it my way.
Little Danny: I stink and you know it. You're perfect and I stink. That's it! The End!
Little Kevin: No, that's not it. It's just that I'm so good that it makes you look really bad.
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