How sad is this?

Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Andrew White pretty much steals the show as Julie's cousin, Arthur, a musician who lost his parents and was injured in a car accident. Not hard to do when you've got charisma vacuums like Mitch Gaylord and Janet Jones playing the leads. What you've heard about this film recycling elements from Rocky IV and Purple Rain is absolutely true, but it does so without any of the style or interest. I've also seen reviews that trash Alan Silvestri's bombastic score, and I'll admit that it's melodramatic in the extreme, but it's also one of the few things aside from some great gymnastics footage that kept me awake. It's a real shame considering a great film could be made about gymnasts. This just isn't it.

Yes she was mostly likable and she is pleasant to look at but the movie is just awful. It seems like one mission of this was to promote her for future work, I don't think it worked even though she seems more than capable. We have seen the small town hero have to go back and work before, this 1986 update to the theme was unnecessary from a movie watchers point of view. It timely exploited the seemingly great guy Gaylord as an American hero, which is certainly is/was. As a high school gymnast I was excited to see it but other than the gymnastics this film is pitiful. The filming/editing of the gymnastics was very good. Watch for the gymnastics but expect nothing else.

There's really not much better than the high concept films of the '80s, and this one has it all. Ever notice how in these films, everyone in the ENTIRE TOWN seems centered around whatever miraculous achievement the star is involved in?In this case, it's a whole group of friends, a whole family and a WHOLE TOWN focused on gymnastics! This movie made me want to rush out and become a gymnast, though I think that may be tempered by the fact that my teeny-bopper mind wanted to fall into the awaiting arms of Mitch Gaylord.Granted, Mystic Pizza made me want to work in a restaurant and North Shore made me want to...uh...go to Hawaii and make fun of people, but as a film rooted in its conception of gymnasts, nothing's better than the would-be star who fails and fails until he finally gets it right.Hoo-yeah.

I was an extra in this film, a face in the crowd for the competition scenes. Even then, it was clear that this film was destined to fail. For one thing, it filmed in Phoenix, a seemingly cursed location that didn't produce box office gold until films like Jerry Maguire and Waiting to Exhale came out. Oh, and the plot was secondary. Remember those weird surfer movies of the 60's and 70's -- the ones whose primary aim was to show off waves, boards and bikinis? American Anthem was like that, but for gymnastics fans. American Anthem might have started an interesting genre had it proved popular.The set designers were quite the artists. The competition scenes were shot in the bowels of a 60 year old abandoned high school auditorium in downtown Phoenix. This building was literally falling down during production. The fact that they were able to mask this ancient hazard (and that no one was killed during filming) was quite an accomplishment.