Two things occurred to me while I watched “Breakaway,” a new hockey comedy set against Toronto’s cultural mosaic. 1. Russell Peters does the worst drunk impression ever. 2. Only one letter separates the word “hokey” from “hockey.”

Vinay Virmani plays Rajveer Singh a first generation Canadian with a passion for hockey and a father (Anupam Kher) who wants him to join the family trucking business. Determined to follow his dream, he cobbles together a team, the Speedy Singhs, and takes on the reigning Hyundai Cup champs. Cultures clash on and off the ice as his traditional father pushes him toward devotion and truck driving and the predominantly white hockey league looks down on his team.

It’s amazing that a country which professes to love hockey makes such lame movies about the sport. Ripe with sports clichés—goals scored just as the buzzer rings, determined underdogs and a life flashing in front of a player’s eyes as they storm down the ice—bad puns—Mahatma Gretzky anyone?—and jokes so old they were moldy when Bob and Bing used them seventy years ago—“You just have to stay positive.” “Oh, I’m positive. Positive we’re going to embarrass ourselves!”—“Breakaway” isn’t so much a story but a place where sport movie truisms go to die. The movie has some heart, but feels like an echo of many other sports movies, most noticeably “Bend it Like Beckham.”

There is probably a good movie to be made about the colour wall of hockey, or the first generation Canadian experience of the game but “Breakaway” isn’t it.

Tags: 1 Star, Comedy

In "Abduction," "Twilight" werewolf Taylor Lautner is Nathan, a typical teen who discovers his life isn't what he thought it was when he finds a photo of himself on a missing person's website. His investigation into the origin of the picture makes him a pawn in an international game of intrigue involving the CIA, an encrypted text message and the pretty girl from next door.

There is a certain percentage of the population who would pay to Lautner stand shirtless in a field, abs rippling in the wind. That would be a better movie than "Abduction." He's got the teen angst eye roll down to a science but other than that hands in the most wooden performance since Geppetto carved Pinocchio out of a block of oak. Beware of woodpeckers.

He's in every scene and despite a tense fight scene here or a loud gun battle there; "Abduction" is sunk by bad acting and even worse dialogue. Even old pros like Alfred Molina and Sigourney Weaver can't get past lines like "there's a bomb in the oven," one of the most hilairously bad lines this year.

"Abduction" will leave you wondering how, exactly, that bomb got into the oven and how exactly, this bomb made it into theatres.

Tags: 1 Star, Thriller

Scorpion King 3: Was there a Scorpion King 2. Either way the newest addition to the Mummy franchise is further proof of the law of diminishing returns. The further away you get from the source, the worse the movie.

Tags: 1 Star, Action & Adventure