'World's Best' review: Math + hip-hop = fine entertainment
Manny Magnus, left, Utkarsh Ambudkar rap it up in "World's Best" on Disney+. Credit: Disney/Ben Mark Holzberg
MOVIE "World's Best"
WHERE Streaming on Disney+
WHAT IT'S ABOUT "World's Best" tells the story of 12-year-old Prem Patel (Manny Magnus), a New Jersey middle schooler with a special talent for math, who lives with his mom, Priya (Punam Patel), and wishes he had more time to spend with his late father, Suresh (Utkarsh Ambudkar).
That picture begins to change when Prem learns that his dad had serious hip-hop talent and once regularly performed on the New York City scene. His world gets further opened by Suresh's book of rhymes, which he brings down from its sad resting place in a shoe box of memories atop mom's shelf.
Only 25¢ for 5 months
WHAT IT'S ABOUT "World's Best" tells the story of 12-year-old Prem Patel (Manny Magnus), a New Jersey middle schooler with a special talent for math, who lives with his mom, Priya (Punam Patel), and wishes he had more time to spend with his late father, Suresh (Utkarsh Ambudkar).
That picture begins to change when Prem learns that his dad had serious hip-hop talent and once regularly performed on the New York City scene. His world gets further opened by Suresh's book of rhymes, which he brings down from its sad resting place in a shoe box of memories atop mom's shelf.
Suddenly, Dad reappears in Prem's imagination, and helps his son unlock his own considerable MC skills.
The Disney+ movie is directed by Roshan Sethi and co-written by Ambudkar ("Ghosts"), whose considerable credits also include long-standing membership in the Freestyle Love Supreme hip-hop improv group co-founded by Lin-Manuel Miranda.
MY SAY This is a sweet movie about a nice kid who becomes a little less lonely when he finally gets to learn something true about his father.
At times, it plays like a middle school, hip-hop-flavored version of "High School Musical," complete with a big number in a cafeteria in which our hero steps up to a bully and says: "Fuzzy face fool, you better face the facts. You did seventh grade twice because of what you lack."
If that were all "World's Best" had to offer, it would suffice. The musical numbers have serious old-school cachet and catchy beats. When it comes to spinning rhymes, Magnus is a real discovery. He keeps pace with Ambudkar, the seasoned professional, while Sethi creatively evokes a vintage aesthetic while rooting the picture in the present.
The movie hits on something deeper, though, in how it finds a throughline between equations and the mathematical nature of beats and rhymes, while applying the lessons learned in each to life experiences that don't easily conform to a formula.
There's no easy, logical explanation for why cancer took Prem's father from him and his mother. Algebra can't tell you why grief feels the way it does. The greatest hip-hop flow in the world won't make it easier to recover from such a trauma.
"World's Best" engages with this deep reservoir of sadness in a form that manages to be accessible and true. It shows the power of memory and imagination in helping to push back against the abyss. It has something real to say about the ways in which all these experiences help to shape us, while the legacies of our parents both make us who we are and set us on our own paths.
And it manages to do all that while throwing in at least one rap that references Fibonacci sequences, as well as an appearance from the beatboxing legend Doug E. Fresh.
BOTTOM LINE The musical sequences are great, but there's much more to "World's Best" than that.