Today, fun with language!

In honor of Supercross: The Movie, please translate this storyline:

When KC joined Team Nami, Rowdy protested. Rowdy was the star of Team Nami, the one who rode a mean Super Moto. Rowdy was a factory rider and KC was a pool cleaner. But KC was dazzled by Jeff Johnson, the Michael Jordan of the circuit, and lured to Team Nami with the promise of riding Supercross in Las Vegas.

When Clay witnessed KC's expertise on the track he declared:

"You ride like a rabid dog!"

I know, how horrible for Rowdy. And worse: KC is a privateer. Just like Trip, whose girlfriend, Piper, is a factory rider, too, but nothing like KC's girlfriend, Zoe, who is studying to take the bar. Earl tells Trip he should be a pool cleaner as well - just for insurance.

I know, I know, what's next?

Trip is hospitalized after running interference for KC; side by side, Trip and KC look like two stages in the evolution of man. Trip is told he has severe head trauma, which troubles Piper, who strips to her underwear, yet worries that Chuy will harm KC.

In one particularly barn-burning scene of lust and revenge and jealousy, emotions are laid bare:

"Hey, seen my bro?" Trip asks.

"No," Piper says.

"OK," Trip replies.

Now the translation:

Super Moto is a dwarf with special powers. Supercross is a drag show. Trip is a pirate. KC is the galley chef. Piper is a small bird. The bar is an Ice Capades term. Team Nami is an elite squad of supermodel warriors. A factory rider is a contract for employment with the Ice Capades.

No? I'm wrong?

If so, Supercross: The Movie, which opens today, is a rebuke of conventional wisdom that says foreign films have no place in a multiplex. It's actually about a form of extreme motorcycle racing - "the second fastest-growing motor sport in the U.S., behind only NASCAR," according to press notes - but it fits the bill for a foreign-language picture in every way except (and this is arguable) the language is English. (Cameron Richardson, who plays Piper, even has her dialogue dubbed - and badly.)

The point of the film, I think, is to cash in on a trend - "the next 'IT' sport," say those helpful press notes. Which makes Supercross: The Movie the latest in a long history of quick hit, no-personality cheapie flicks designed to exploit a pop fad or an underground sensation getting its 15 minutes in the mainstream. And there's been one for everything from surfing and roller skating to video games and break dancing; the pinnacle of the genre remains Richard Lester's Beatles exploitation, A Hard Day's Night.

Normally storylines in these movies are about, say, a rec center slated for demolition and how the hip misfits use their new cool skills to disrupt the evil real-estate barons. Supercross is an underdog story, but more blatantly, a commercial for a sport whose promoter, Clear Channel, is co-producer of the film. But even by that standard, it's a bizarre, contradictory mess, a lousy promotion for a sport still unknown to many Americans: Supercross corporate sponsorship, the story explains, is fraught with corruption and selling your soul, and the only true riders are desperados.

Normally a quick cash-in at least tries to sell people on the novelty and thrills, but Supercross cuts right to the transparently cynical hard-sell: Even as a hardened coach (played by Robert Carradine) betrays his finest rider (Steve Howey), the coach goes on and on about how he can't wait to see Supercross in Vegas, "with 50,000 people and lasers and fireworks and everything!" And even better: Directed by Steve Boyum, a studio stunt man, Supercross doesn't bother to get Supercross right. We have no idea who is who behind the helmets and jumpsuits on those bikes, who is in first place, who wiped out. Everyone looks like a Popsicle.

My standard for movies this empty is whether the film is as much fun as a video game about the same subject. Supercross is not only not as much fun, it makes a video game sound like a drag: As far as I can tell, Supercross consists of driving fast up a hill, coming down, driving fast up a hill, coming down. As for Super Moto, I'm still pretty certain it's a magical dwarf.

First Published August 17, 2005, 9:08 a.m.