2021, Movies

Vince Carter: Legacy (2021, Justin C. Polk)

Vince Carter is not why I’m a basketball fan, that’s Steve Nash. But Vince Carter is why I paid enough attention to basketball to discover Steve Nash. And, of course, I was a pretty impressionable age when Vinsanity was happening. So I have a soft spot for him and for his story. (I am the rare Raptors fan who never blamed him for what happened.) This is the second TV-quality documentary I’ve watched about him. It’s probably the better one.

But it is just a pretty standard TV sports documentary. It tells Carter’s story with a bunch of talking heads from his career and his childhood and various interviews with the man his self. It’s strange who they didn’t get – no T Mac or Alvin Williams, for example, and nobody who might have livened up the proceedings by daring to say something outside of the approved narrative. But that’s what this movie feels like, an authorized biography.

Unlike The Carter Effect, this is mostly about Carter’s career and much less about what he meant to Canada. But, for those people who only know about the early part of his career, it’s a good (but kind of brief) summary of what he did post-Orlando. (I know there are people who were pretty unaware he was still in the league when he retired.)

There’s nothing new here, about Carter himself or about basketball. It’s workmanlike and it doesn’t really tell a basketball fan like me anything new.

Yet enjoyed it enough, like a trip down memory lane, having watching many of the iconic moments in the film. Also, Carter seems like a really nice guy and I’ve always felt bad about how it ended here so it’s nice to see a career-capping thing like this, even if it feels like a super-extended Sports Center segment.

So it’s certainly only for fans to watch. But, as a fan, it was a nice watch.

6/10

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