An African American kid named Miles (Voiced by Robert Richard from Nickelodeon's "Cousin Skeeter") is a student who's failing school, but can redeem himself if he gets an A+ on his Martin Luther King Jr. project. He and his friends go on a class field trip to Dr.King's house which has been made into a museum about Dr.King's life. The museum curator, Mrs.Peck (Voiced by Whoopi Goldberg) resets Dr.King's old watch and sends Miles and his friends back in time to key points of Dr.King's life and to an alternate future.
Our main characters throughout the film are ok, but are very forgettable. Miles is the typical character who starts as a cocky, annoying kid and will eventually learn to appreciate what history has done for us, can't be any more predictable then that. I'm sorry, but he's just too predictable and just plays the same old average kid you see in every educational adventure film. The character is boring, his personality is bland and his motivations for time traveling is taken straight out from other time traveling films. There's really nothing new about his character. He has some emotional moments but those scenes are shown very briefly and are at times horribly acted out. His friends are just as boring and predictable as him. His best friend Randy (Voiced by Lucas Black) is the annoying kid who likes to be cool; his project partner Maria (Voiced by Jessica Marie Garcia) is just the typical smartass; and his bully Kyle (Zachary Leigh) is the same old usual undeveloped stereotyped bully who by the way has a running gag that's just desperate for at least one chuckle.
Our main characters are a complete bore but is the supporting cast any good. Well, most of the supporting cast is just a bunch of celebrities that are being paid to make a cameo, however, with the exception of Martin Luther King Jr. there are three characters that show up a lot. Let's start with Whoopi Goldberg's character Mrs. Peck the museum curator. Her character is basically the Miss Frizzle of the story, the one who takes the kids to where the education is. The odd thing about her is for some reason you know she has everything planned out and just by looking at her you also have the feeling that Miles and his friends aren't the first ones to get into this special part of the tour. I also find her a bit mysterious because we don't know her back story or how she got the time traveling watch and when we're in the alternate future we never see her. After all these years of not seeing this movie, she's the only one I remember well and the only celebrity I recognized in this film. Whoopi Goldberg's voice acting is good, her dialogue is well written and she can sometimes sneak in a joke.
The second supporting character Mrs.Clark (Voiced by Susan Sarandon) is just as interesting as Mrs.Peck. When I first saw her, she spoke to me as the same old teacher we see in almost every educational film. As the film kept getting further, she started showing a personality. The best scenes that show her character are the time traveling scenes. When the kids see the famous "I Have A Dream Speech", we see her as a young teenage hippie showing her love for peace. When we see her in the alternate future, she acts like a person who lost all her spirit and acts like all the people in the alternate time period, but still tries to defend African Americans. Those scenes show what a free spirited person she is and show that she'll always will be defending African Americans for peace. Susan Sarandon's voice acting is great and fits the character.
Our third supporting character is Mile's Mom (Voiced by Angela Bassett). Her performance is just as boring as Miles and his friends. She's forgettable, she isn't interesting, and feels like a thrown in character because we need to show who watches over Miles. However, I did find her performance affecting in the alternate future scene, but at the same time, I felt like it was played out in a very dull way.
As for the rest of the supporting characters they're all memorable and each of them do a great job with their voice acting. Samuel L Jackson as Martin's friend Turner puts a lot of spirit in his character. Danny Glover as the Train Conductor who tells Miles friend to move into the white section of the train, acts very humble, also bringing up the topic, why whites and blacks don't associate in the south. James Earl Jones as Martin Luther's Dad, plays the role very powerful, but for some weird reason reminds me of his character Mufasa from "The Lion King". When young Martin, thought about what his farther has told him in about serving his fellow man and seeing his father's image in the clouds, I was expecting him to say "Remember who you are". Edward Asner as Mr.Harris did an extremely shocking performance in the alternate future scene. The only characters I didn't like was John Travolta as Kyle's Dad (A character you can run the film without) and Richard Kind as the crazy bus driver (Who is just in the film as an unfunny running gag, and makes you wonder who was dumb enough to give him a license).
Now that I talked about the characters, let's talk about how they explore the history of Martin Luther King Jr., is it educational and is he shown as a great man like everyone says he is? Let's start when the kids see him as a teenager. When we see him at age 12 (Voiced by Theodore Borders) he acts like the average African American kid, but he still shows the side of him we're all familiar with. The historic event that the kids enter is the small event (That most of us probably heard when we were first learning about him in elementary school) when he and a couple of white kids play Baseball. The animation for the baseball scenes are drawn out neatly, but sadly put in a few unfunny future jokes. The scene when the mother stops the mixed race kids from playing together, is played exactly how I pictured the game being stopped when I was a kid and let me tell you it's sad to watch, especially when she says the word "Negro".
When we see Martin at the age of 15, he's just as wonderful as he was at the age of 12. They really portray him as a very kind hearted man. This whole sequence when he's with our main characters and his family made me shed a tear drop, it's really a heartwarming scene. Do you know what the shocking part is? Martin's 15 year old self is voiced by Steve Urkel from the show "Family Matters" and he voiced young Dr. King so well that I was shocked when I saw the actor's name on the credits. He doesn't even sound like Urkel at all, can you imagine if he did? So where's the history in this visit? Well, we're not only introduced to Dr.King's Family but we also learn about Martin's schooling and the time of racial segregation shown in shocking documentary footage.
Our next trip is when we see Martin at age 26 (Voiced by Star Trek's very own LeVar Burton). Again, another voice actor who does an amazing job at portraying Martin. This visit shows us when he becomes a reverend and talks about using non-violence as the tool for freedom (Which sends shivers down my spine). The animation in this visit takes a bit of a Ralph Bakshi style by mixing Animation with live action documented footage. When Martin uses Gandhi as an example as a non violent hero, we see Gandhi's image over a house and see African American folks dropping their weapons. What made the mix of animation and live action footage really intense, is when we see the non-violent protest sequence. While we see cops and fireman beat up and arrest non-violent protesters, the scenes cuts back forth from animation to live action documented footage and with those scenes together really makes the scene emotional and hard to watch.
Our last visit in the past is the famous historical event when Martin gives his famous "I Have A Dream Speech". This scene to me is the highlight of the film. We see a lot of effort being put into the animation; the design for the event is amazing; we hear the real sound footage from Martin's speech and they did a tremendous job mixing the live footage from the real speech with the animation. What's also great about the scene is we actually see these boring kids have a bit of development in their character. Aside from using the real sound recording for Martin's speech, they did use a voice actor for when Martin sees the kids before he makes his speech. The guy they got to do the voice is Dr.King's son Dexter King, whose voice really does resemble his fathers.
Our final visit in time is the alternate future when Miles takes 12 year old Martin to the future to not only save him from being assassinated but to also show him how cool his time period is. Unfortunately, everything in his time period has been changed; his friends (Who for some reason are affected by the change when they travel through time, except for Martin and Miles) have changed for the worst and is now a world full of racial hatred because Martin wasn't there to make a stand in the "African American Civil Rights Movement". This whole sequence is basically the "Pottersville" sequence from "It's a Wonderful Life" and to be honest, I think this was one of the best adaptations to that scene from the film next to the alternate timeline with Biff from "Back To The Future Part 2" (Which by the way, the time travel logic in "Back To The Future" really differs with the logic here, and I'm not talking about what they use to time travel) . What makes it shocking is this is how the world was in history and sadly still is in some parts of America to this day. It also shows without Martin Luther King Jr stepping up to the plate America would still probably be what it was decades ago. This part doesn't just show the racial prejudices happening to African Americans, but also shows the racial prejudices happening to other races such as the Spanish and the Jews for example. We even see documented footage of racial segregation, hate signs and symbols as Miles and young Martin walk across the footage in depression. This whole sequence reminds me of all the equal benefits we have today and without them this is what the world would be like. I do question why the friends who time traveled with Miles and Martin have changed, instead of seeing it as an alternate future as well, but the emotion and sadness of what happened to these characters are strong enough to make you overlook this flaw.
I'm not going to tell you how the film ends, but I will tell you it's a bit corny but can be very inspirational to the younger viewers. What I found very emotional at the end is how they portrayed Martin's death. I'm not going to tell you how they did it, but I will say what they did for his death was all they needed to do.
Aside from the lame main characters, horrible jokes, and some useless cameos, the film really does its job of portraying the story of Dr.King. The story is predictable, but still has a great moral and great educational value on Dr.King. The animation is good and mixes extremely well with the live footage. The voice acting for the supporting characters and Martin is acted so well that they don't sound like the actors portraying their voices. This has to be one of the best educational biography films for kids I have ever seen. What I personally think would work better is if they just did an animated bio film on Dr.King's life instead of making it time traveling adventure film. Then again, you do need some kind of bate to make an animated educational film or TV show for kids and to do that you need to have some kind of fantasy adventure, if it's fun and educational that's what counts and believe me it was all that, just bad characters. For elementary school teachers or parents who are reading this review defiantly show the kids this film if you can find it. It's very educational and if Martin were alive to see this film, I'm sure he would be proud.
RATING 4/5
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