At first, it's not a friendship made in heaven. Kevin moves in next door to Max, who spies across the back fence at the little kid, who wears braces and glasses, test-flies a bird-like model flying machine he calls an "Ornothopter" ("I gave birth to a 7 1/2-pound dictionary," his mother says with a sigh). In gym class, a cruel kid throws a basketball to knock Kevin off his crutches, and Max is blamed for the stunt. It's ironic when Max goes for remedial reading lessons and finds out that Kevin is his tutor. "I didn't throw the basketball," he tells the little kid, who says he was a chump to take the rap for someone else.
The book they read is King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, and it is Arthurian chivalry that Kevin believes should guide their lives. Soon they arrive at a working arrangement that takes advantage of both their needs: Kevin rides around on Max's shoulders, and they even play basketball that way. The extra height is great for lay-ups. (Did the book's author see "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome," where another giant and another dwarf teamed up to create the character Master-Blaster?) We meet the people in their lives. Kevin's mother (Sharon Stone) struggles to keep him out of "special schools" and help him lead the fullest possible life. Max's grandparents, Gram and Grim (Gena Rowlands and Harry Dean Stanton) are rearing him, not without love, after the death of his mother and the imprisonment of his father (James Gandolfini).
The last third of the movie involves derring-do that's highly improbable, especially a makeshift toboggan ride. But for the younger audiences the movie is aimed at, these adventures will be thrilling and not too violent, and they do give both boys a chance to put the code of the Round Table into practice.
"The Mighty" is an emotionally affecting movie (much like the recent and somewhat similar "Simon Birch," which is about a friendship between a fatherless boy and a dwarf). It is a little stronger in its central theme, which is that we all have weaknesses, we are not perfect, but together we can be more than the sum of our parts.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7s7vGnqmempWnwW%2BvzqZmq52mnrK4v46tn55lnZ60qcDYZmhycWg%3D