To be perfectly honest with you, I thought this moive looked bad from the start. The only reason I went to see it is because my brother was an extra, and he insisted we would be able to see him. We didn't, of course. We just saw a bad movie.

The plot is, as most sports movies go, hackeneyed. There's this little town called Mystery, Alaska. They have Saturday hockey games there, where the best men in town play against each other. A former resident (Hank Azaria) says they're as good as any NHL team. They play the New York Rangers. The End.

Doesn't sound like something that could go on for more than 85 minutes, does it? Well, this movie goes on for over two hours. How, you might ask? There are these little things called "subplots," and this movie's full of 'em, and half-baked they all are. We learn that the mayor's wife is having an affair with one of the hockey players. We learn that the latest addition to the team has love problems. We learn that the town's judge (Burt Reynolds) is jealous because he never got to play in the Saturday games. We learn...it doesn't matter. What matters is that the movie is full of annoying subplots that do nothing but distract the audience from the main plot.

The subplots aren't the only problem with this movie, either. Take the hockey game scenes, for instance. These are some of the most poorly directed sports scenes I have ever seen. Jay Roach (director of the "Austin Powers" movies) obviously doesn't know a thing about hockey. The only thing he contributes to this movie is that he was probably the person who hooked Mike Meyers in for an unbilled cameo.

The rest of the movie has a slough of other problems. While I was watching this, the David E. Kelly influence became more and more apparent. I detest "Ally McBeal" and find "The Practice" watchable at best, and this movie seems like an overrun version of one of his shows. The characters are stereotypes, the subplots are plentiful, and the humor is flat. We're supposed to laugh every time the town sheriff's kid says a dirty word. Note to Mr. Kelly: you used that one in your last movie, "Lake Placid" except it was a little old lady instead of little kid!

To make things worse, there isn't much that's laughably bad about this movie, but what there is I will list.

(1) Sunlight. It's almost always sunny in this movie. Doesn't seem like a problem does it? Well, the movie takes place IN ALASKA IN DECEMBER. There's this thing called winter solstice up north. I live in Calgary (which, incidentally, is right by Canmore where they filmed this), which is much further to the south than Alaska, and in December the sun's only out for a few hours each day!

(2) The French Guy. There's this French guy in Mystery, Alaska. There'd be nothing wrong with that if they didn't say he was born and raised there.

(3) The "R" Rating. The makers of this film could have easily toned down some of the language and content of this film and made it "PG-13" and made a lot more money, as it's only kids under thirteen who could really appreciate this drivel.

Rating: 1.5 turkeys.