Saturday Sequel presents Like Mike 2: Streetball

By Paul Anthony

Back in 2002 we were in the height of the Bow Wow Era and also Jonathon Lipnicki as well, one was a cute little young rapper and the other was cute little kid that was pretty much in the prime of his acting career. So why not get these two kids together and make a film about orphans finding a pair of Michael Jorden’s shoes that some how actually fit and gave him powers to be the G.O.A.T the movie had all the magic and was a good little hit. The film had the budget of just 30 million and mad just around 62 million. so you know what that means, yes a sequel was coming. Sadly Lil Bow Wow grew up and so did Lipnicki which meant that they weren’t going to be in a sequel and worse of all the film would be direct to video which in 2006 these films were still a knock off basically unlike today. the biggest stars of this film was basically Kel Mitchell and Mark Cuban. the film stars Jascha Washington in the lead role where the kid finds the shoes. Now the biggest question of the day would be did this film live up to the first film? I best answer would be no of course but let’s take a look at why it didn’t.

In this film we meet a young boy named Jerome Jenkins Jr, one day playing basketball with his friends, they learn that a streetball team is coming to town and is looking for talent. Needless to say Jerome and his friends aren’t very good even though street ball is in Jerome’s family, his dad is often referred top as a good player though chokes during the big games. One day Jerome finds a pair of shows hanging on a street light, what catches the his eyes the most is the fact that the shoes says MJ on it. And that night the shoes are struck by lightening which Jerome learns has given him more abilities to play basketball but only when he wears them. Soon he starts to gain attention from other people and even joins a streetball team and leads them to the championship game however life isn’t perfect off the court. He stops making time for his friends, he becomes a ball hog which begins to turn his teammates against him as well. Meanwhile Ray who is like his mom’s distant relative friend becomes his agent to get him sponsors but in the long run he was only using him for the money and not looking out for his well being. Finally everything catches up to Jerome and he realizes all the wrong he is doing. In the end he makes it up to everyone he has hurt and screwed Ray with making money.

Okay so we know it didn’t live up to the first film, the film did have some over the top scenes that just didn’t seem like it fit in with the rest of the movie, which made these scenes even more over the top and just hurt the film. The film also tried to recreate the magic from the first film with a new cast which just didn’t happen. The Character of Ray was a joke he was called cousin Ray living with them and really wasn’t family at all. That made no sense. In the end I am giving this film a C for being average at best!