Stop me if you’ve heard this one: A teenager is forced by his/her parents into a particular hobby, but the teen finds his/her calling in a totally different pastime. The teenager makes his/her way through the ranks of the other pastime behind his/her parents’ backs, possibly dealing with a love interest and/or a nasty rival. The parents find out about the alternate hobby just before the big championship/tournament/competition/whatever and everything goes to shit for our main character. Then everything turns back around in time for the big game at the climax.

Sound familiar? Well, that’s Whip It.

There is one deviation from the established formula at the end of the movie, but it’s ultimately treated as no big deal, so the difference makes no difference. There are a few likable characters (the father comes immediately to mind), some occasional clever gags and an underwater scene that was… um, interesting, but there’s otherwise absolutely nothing new here.

The actors clearly knew this as every single one of them appears to be sleepwalking through the movie. Imagine Juno without the pregnancy, pop culture references and roughly one-fifth of the humor and snark and you’d have Ellen Page’s performance. Imagine Marcia Gay Harden’s character in The Mist without any of the paranoia, charisma or brimstone and you’d pretty much have her character here. Jimmy Fallon is annoying (when is he ever not?), Kirsten Wiig is the surrogate mother, Juliette Lewis is the transparently bitchy rival, Drew Barrymore is a violent spaz, Alia Shawkat is the best friend, Andrew Wilson is a scene-chewing parody of his brother Owen… I could go on and on about the rest of the actors and the one-dimensional characters they play.

Oh, and note to Zoe Bell: I love you and I wish that acting career could take off, but it’s just not working. Either go back to stunt work or take a role that gives you room to be your funny and charming self.

Fortunately, the movie does have one redeeming feature: The roller derby matches. Those matches were very well shot and edited, with great musical accompaniment. It also helps that roller derby is a fun sport to watch with very few rules to keep track of, though that hardly stops the movie from repeating the rules ad nauseum through the first act of the movie.

In regards to the directorial career of Drew Barrymore, I’m still undecided. I had a lot of fun with the fast-paced and dynamically shot roller derby scenes, but the rest of the movie had a bland story with blander visuals. Somehow, I know that Barrymore is better than this. I know she went through a rough spot for a few years, but she’s still been in the movie business since the age of roughly -2 and she’s worked with some of the best minds in movies. Personally, I’m willing to grant her a mulligan on this if she can find an original screenplay for her next one and knock it out of the park.

I’ll admit that the movie is fun in places, but it’s predictable as the TV Guide. As a matter of fact, I’d say that going to an actual roller derby would be just as much fun as watching this movie, if not more so. If you’ve never seen a roller derby game, trust me: It’s the only part of Whip It that you haven’t already seen umpteen times.