$$$ | CinemaNow
Posted: 10/7/2011
The adventures of a pair of magical sneakers--and the boy whose life they change forever continue in Like Mike 2: Streetball, the follow-up to the 2002 hit basketball fantasy Like Mike.This time around, it's teenager Jerome Jenkins, Jr. who's got the sky-high hoop dreams but earthbound athletic prowess. That is, until he stumbles across the basketball shoes with a little something extra--the power to turn an average b-ball enthusiast into a young Michael Jordan. After a wild electrical storm, during which Jerome and his new sneakers (that carry the lucky initials M.J.) are struck by lightning, he wakes up the next morning to find he's got crazy new basketball skills.In fact, so amazing are Jerome's moves on the court, that he's recruited by Game On, a top-ranked, local streetball team that's going out on the summer tournament circuit. Of course, Jerome's hot to hit the road with Coach Archie and the feisty Game On players, despite his divorced parents' reservations. But when Jerome's mom's fast-talking cousin Ray offers to accompany him on the tour, the boy's mother gives in, even if his dad, a former hotshot hoopster nicknamed Double J, would rather his impressionable son stay away from basketball--like he ultimately did.Nonetheless, Jerome, with the help of his inspired sneakers becomes a traveling superstar, leading the Game On team to one victory after another, and becoming a media--and a marketing--sensation in the process. He's even joined on the trip by his two best friends, Rodney and Nathan, who soon find themselves relegated to the sidelines as Jerome, egged on by the opportunistic Ray, starts taking his newfound fame a bit too seriously.Eventually, Jerome's overconfidence, along with Ray's manipulative huckstering of the teen basketball icon, turns the winning Game On posse into a group of second-place losers, causing a defeated Jerome to hang up his magic footwear--for good.Or will he?