"Just Wright" Movie Trailer Review

Movie Trailer Review

"Just Wright"

By our guest blogger, Joel Crabtree

I can hear a lame romantic comedy coming a mile away. It sounds a bit like Ke$ha's "Blah Blah Blah."

That's how the trailer for "Just Wright," the new movie starring Queen Latifah and Common, begins. It blasts out a standard-issue pop song reassuring the audience that it won't have to think too hard--a strategy reminiscent of "Valentine's Day's" use of Black Eyed Peas in its promos.

The song selection, though, isn't the most befuddling thing about the trailer.

In the film, Latifah stars as a physical therapist who falls for her client, an injured franchise player for the NBA's New Jersey Nets. Yes, the New Jersey Nets--and in the movie, the team actually looks successful.

Any basketball fan can tell you that the '09-10 Nets will go down as one of the worst teams in NBA history. "Just Wright" seems to have created an alternate universe where the team wins and has a franchise player. Sounds more like a fantasy film to me.

The team is so embarrassingly bad, it's a wonder that Fox Searchlight is even releasing it this year. Why not wait another year ... or two ... or even three. But no. Instead the studio openly uses the Nets logo and uniforms to sell "Just Wright"--bad move.

No matter what team Common's Scott McKnight plays for, it's hard to tell what "Just Wright" is aiming for. Is it a formulaic romcom or is it a basketball movie? Even with a cameo appearance in the trailer by Orland Magic superstar Dwight Howard, "Just Wright" clearly isn't a basketball movie. It looks like a formulaic romcom that happens to feature the NBA.

What could separate it from the genre, though, is well-handled scenes of basketball. If director Sanaa Hamri ("Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2") can deliver sequences on par with Spike Lee's "Kobe Doin' Work," "Just Wright" might find an audience--even with that New Jersey Nets debacle.

View the trailer for "Just Wright" below. What are your thoughts?