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Generally favorable reviews - based on 8 Critics What's this?

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  • Summary: At a time when American teens lag far behind other countries in math and science, WHIZ KIDS is a coming-of-age documentary that tells the story of three remarkably different yet equally passionate 17-year-old scientists who vie to compete in the nation's oldest, most prestigious science competition. Win or lose, these ‘whiz kids’ raise questions about class, courage, personal sacrifice, success and failure, and in the process, learn as much about themselves as they do about science. (Shadow Distribution) Expand
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 5 out of 8
  2. Negative: 0 out of 8
  1. It's the candid moments of joy and accomplishment -- Welcker finding out she's an Intel contest finalist, Khan learning he's been accepted to Yale, high school valedictorian Cisneros thanking her devoted parents in her graduation speech -- that really make this one soar.
  2. Reviewed by: Staff (Not credited)
    80
    Can't get the kids in your life to pay enough attention to homework? Show them Tom Shepard's terrific documentary, and you might just light a fire.
  3. 70
    This quietly absorbing film is finally more about character formation--curiosity, persistence, endurance--than about achievement as a means to some extrinsic social end.
  4. So even though the science fair was something your other classmates did while you mastered Pitfall!, the sights in Whiz Kids will no doubt stir you.

See all 8 Critic Reviews

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