Akeelah and the Bee marks the third time that Laurence Fishburne and Angela Bassett have worked together (What's Love Got To Do With It and Boyz in the Hood being the other two). We've come to expect solid performances from these two Oscar nominees, but the movie's best performance comes from 12-year-old actor Keke Palmer. She holds her own in the company of such greatness. With a trio of great performances and a wonderful script, Akeelah and the Bee is a must-see.

Akeelah Anderson is a bright, insecure 7th grader at Crenshaw Middle School in South Central Los Angeles. Her intelligence makes her the source of teasing and ridicule at school. At home, she is virtually invisible to her overworked mother Tanya (Angela Bassett) who spends most of her time between Akeelah's trouble-making brother Terrence (Julito McCullum) and her sister Kiana (Erica Hubbard), a teen mother. But a teacher sees potential in Akeelah and encourages her to participate in Crenshaw's first ever spelling bee. She reluctantly agrees and wins. She catches the eye of Dr. Joshua Larabee (Laurence Fishburne), a former national spelling bee winner and friend of the school's principal who agrees to coach Akeelah. Suddenly little Akeelah from Crenshaw is competing against kids from Beverly Hills and Woodland Hills ... and winning. As Akeelah and her friend Javier (J.R. Villarreal) spell words that we've never heard of, can't pronounce and will never use, we see her confidence and esteem grow. Before long, Akeelah captures the hopes of the entire community who are rooting for her to go all the way.

Spelling bees don't seem like they would be as compelling as the typical inspirational basketball or football games, but writer/director Doug Atchison manages to make them just as exciting. He chose to film the bees as he would a real sporting event; as a result, the bees have all the suspense and tension of an athletic competition. Even though, we know the outcome of most of the bees, he still managed to keep the audience on the edge of their seats.

All three leads give solid performances. As Akeelah's overworked mother, a lesser actress could have come off shrill and irritating but Angela Bassett's performance makes me remember why she is one of our premier actresses. Laurence Fishburne and Keke Palmer play well off of each other as their bond and mentor and student grows.

Akeelah and the Bee is one of those feel-good movies that we need more of. I appreciated the fact that Atchison (who's white) presented another side of South Central Los Angeles - a side comprised of hardworking parents and students who quietly exist right along side the more infamous gangbangers and drug dealers that so many other filmmakers seem so eager to glamorize. Their reality is just as real and can be just as compelling (if not more so) than the run-of-the-mill drug dealer/gangbanger stories that we never seem to run out of.

I thoroughly enjoyed Akeelah and the Bee and recommend it highly.