Rating: 
Summary: Energetic teen comedy nearly fumbles the ball
Review: Varsity Blues is aimed at teenagers, where it has found a sizable audience. That it was produced by MTV is reason enough for it to be fairly hip and more than a little raunchy. It begins as a scathing satire of the politics of high school football , but it nearly fumbles the theme toward the end. Still, it has its moments, won't do permanent damage to young audiences and tends to be better than most recent movies in this genre. West Cannon, Texas, a fictional place, is a community obsessed with football. The picture begins with a silent montage of home movies of little kids playing Pee Wee football. We see their parents faces contort as they yell and scream. Then we move on to the same boys playing varsity football. Coach Kilmer [Jon Voight] has lead the team to twenty-two divisional titles and two state championships. He's been there so long that he's coached some of the boys' fathers, all of whom seem to be trying to relive their glory days through their sons. The town has become blinded to the fact that Coach Kilmer is a bully, a tyrant and a bigot, whose only concern is whether or not the boys will win him another championship. They are just puppets to him. The main character, Mox, is played by teen idol James Van Der Beek from TV's Dawson's Creek. For some reason, Van Der Beek does not seem as sure of himself as he does in his TV role. His performance is hardly more than adequate. Mox is the only team player who sees the coach as he really is. Kilmer is instinctively aware of this, but when star quarterback Lance [Paul Walker] is badly injured, coach has no choice but to use Mox as a replacement. What follows is basically a battle of wills that threatens the team's chances of winning. Much of the movie works. Only Mox and his girlfriend seem interested in getting an education, but, after all, there are communities where scholastics really do take a back-seat to athletic achievements. These teens party a lot, but what's new about that? Unlike many recent films, Varsity Blues works hard to show these kids as basically worthwhile, even the ones who are far from bright or physically attractive. They care about each other. The team's eventual revolt against the coach's tyranny borders on being noble. Other elements are weak. The team visits a strip club and discovers that one of their teachers is moonlighting as a show girl. Since nothing comes of this in the movie, it is just an excuse to show some skin. The satirical elements fizzle because the writers apparently love football after all. This creates a situation where the coach must be defeated while the game has to triumph. This divided attitude weakens the plot and makes the observations from the early scenes a little hollow.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't tell my friends you saw me rate this movie!
Review: I secretly rate this in my top twenty movies. I'm too old too fall in love with the Dawson's Creek boy, so no, I don't like it because of him. Sure, it's a bit of your typical sports movie, but it's a bit off edge as well. It's funny as hell. The characters are completely amusing and the southern hick accents top the charts. I may live in Nebraska, but I am not a football fan at all, yet this football movie is great for any movie fan.
Believe me, you'll smile a lot, laugh a ton and sometimes wonder just what is going on. Enough, I better get off before someone I know sees me writing this good review about a movie most critics didn't like.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent
Review: Excellent movie. It shows the true side of football, how dirty the sport really is. The movie is very funny, and the characters are well developed. I love Billy Bob(stupid fat guy but very funny). James Van Der Beek does an excellent job in his movie. I think he is terrible on Dawson's Creek so I was surpise he did so well. If for nothing else in the movie you must see the whipped cream girl. Verrrry nice.
Rating:
Summary: Surprisngly better than most, but not all
Review: Surprisingly better than the standard teen sports movie, bascially it's about how a footbal town's team grows from the steroid-induced pranksters to mature (as high schoolers can be) team players. Although this was a fairly well conceived teen movie, it was still at heart, a teen movie. However if you want a movie with the same imapct aimed at a more adult auidience, try "Mystery, Alaska"
Rating:
Summary: I enjoyed the movie, but the ending is ridiculosly
Review: unrealistic. In real life, the school's principal would have
bolted to the sidelines as soon as he found out that his head
football coach was not on the sidelines. I read the book Friday Night Lights about four years ago and this
is extremely close to a movie version of it. Many of the characters in the book can be easily matched to the ones on the
screen. This movie had appeal for me because I am in the sports medicine
field and have had to deal with coaches like those seen in this
movie, and at times have felt the same way that Jon Moxon did
about winning another district title for that coach: "If we
win on Friday night, then Kilmer is still the greatest coach that
ever lived, and nothing ever changes. He can just go on making up
his own rules and treating players like cattle." Enough of the soapbox. The soundtrack is awesome and I enjoyed the movie
Rating:
Summary: Half Accurate, At Any Rate
Review: This is probably the closest anyone will come to making a film of the fine book "Friday Night Lights," about the raving football extremists in West Texas. Seen in that context, "Varsity Blues" is a reasonably good movie. The high school football players portrayed in "Varsity Blues" were every bit as obnoxious as those in my football-fanatic Texas home town -- but they didn't appear to be nearly as dumb.
Rating:
Summary: Jon Voight Saves A Mediocre Film
Review: I usually don't care for youth movies. I only saw Brian Robbins' "Varsity Blues" because I have recently become interested in Jon Voight. "Varsity Blues" is not much more than a passable time killer. High school football player Jonathon "Mox" Moxon(James Van Der Beek) goes for the glory of victory while rebelling against his own coach, the tyrannical and win-at-all costs Bud Kilmer(Jon Voight). Robbins' "Varsity Blues" is basically another forgettable youth movie. The film isn't particularly exciting or interesting. The audience doesn't develop any real concern for the characters. Jon Voight is the only saving grace of the picture. One of Hollywood's most sensitive males, Voight proves himself to be one of the great chameleons of present-day cinema. I am astonished that the same actor who earned an Oscar for playing the sensitive paraplegic Vietnam veteran of Hal Ashby's "Coming Home" was now playing the ruthless, berating, and badmouthing football coach of "Varsity Blues." Voight's performance elevates Robbins' film. Brian Robbins' "Varsity Blues" is only for big fans of youth movies and Jon Voight.
Rating: 
Summary: Wow, what an awful film
Review: I don't know what the residents of Texas did to the folks responsible for Varsity Blues but, on behalf of my home state, let me say that I sincerely apologize for whatever it was that led you to make this truly awful, truly stupid, truly useless film. Now, get over it! Anyway, with that off my chest, Varsity Blues is basically the story of an intellectual high school football jock played by James Van Der Beek. We know he's an intellectual because we see him reading Slaughterhouse Five on the sidelines. Oh, and he doesn't like his small town's revered high school football coach. We know he's evil because he's played by Jon Voight. After the school's star quarterback is injured, Van Der Beek takes his place and soon becomes the town's biggest hero. But, as stated previously, Van Der Beek reads Slaughterhouse Five so, of course, he's above such petty things. He's going to play football but he's going to do it HIS way (no, make no doubt about it, in this film James Van Der Beek is anything but unstuck in time). This is a film that wants to have it both ways -- high school football is condemned as being essentially a fascist pursuit that destroys the young but at the same time, isn't it great to see Van Der Beek lead the team to victory? There's more to life than just attending keggers and having meaningless sex with cheerleaders but, just for the sake of argument, let's fill the entire film with keggers and meaningless sex with cheerleaders. The film, in short, is an MTV production and the director makes sure we never forget this by keeping his camera constantly and continually spinning around as if desperately trying to fool us into thinking there's actually something interesting happening on screen. As bad as the direction is, the script actually manages to be even worse by giving us a collection of stereotypical, one demensional characters and scenes that have appeared in just about every other sports film ever made. With a script this bad, its unfair to penalize the actors for giving awful performances but who ever said life was fair? Voight glowers as if he can't believe he's doing this while his daughter wins an Oscar. Scott Caan, as Van Der Beek's wild friend and teammate, lets his smirk carry him through the film. As the token fat guy, Ron Lester is so believably pathetic that you'll want to smack some sense into him. Van Der Beek, meanwhile, plays his role with a fatal combination of intensity and smugness and, sadly, seems to be convinced that he's making a truly important film. Since this film is set in Texas, we get a lot of cowboy hats and a lot of overdone drawls that, whatever they are, certainly aren't Texan. Van Der Beek's accent is, without a doubt, one of the worst attempts at a southwestern drawl I have ever heard. Yes, Texans do speak with a drawl and we do have a very noticeable accent (myself certainly included). But, like everyone else on the planet, we also have our own individual speech rhythms with the occasional variations in tone and pitch. Unlike Van Der Beek's intellectual jock, we do not deliver every sentence in the exact same drawling monotone! Still, trying to figure out just where exactly Van Der Beek's accent came from is probably the most entertaining part of the film which is so simpleminded and by-the-numbers, it doesn't even succeed at achieving a level of camp. Some bad movies you can at least laugh at. Varsity Blues, on the other hand, is one of the dullest films I've ever seen. Its a great cure for insomnia if nothing else.
Rating:
Summary: Greatest football movie of all time
Review: This is one of the greatest movies of all time. Any Highschool football players can either relate to this movie or goes to bed wishing they could relate to this movie. This movie however, does not just pertain to highschool football players because anyone can understand the struggles they go through and the more than obvious sucess the find.
Rating: 
Summary: Varsity Snooze
Review: I thought this movie was a snoozer..It got play because of James Van DerBeak of dawsons creek..It was like a few of the teenager movies that all come out at the same time had been rolled up into one..Football, fat kid drinkin syrup, star quarterback hurt, my father doesn't think Im good enough...That sums up the whole film...I gave it a thumbs down...
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