Though based on a Wired magazine story, this sticks closely to the formulas of inspirational-teacher and sports-team dramas; distinguishing it from the pack is the fact that all four students who formed the club were undocumented.

| Jan 23, 2015

The film refreshingly portrays its kids as part of a diverse group trying to succeed in a country in which they can never find secure footing.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 20, 2015

Sequences and scenes end unceremoniously, everyone in the movie seems to know each other's backstory before they're properly introduced, and mild jokes land with uncertainty.

| Original Score: C | Jan 20, 2015

While the appropriately titled "Spare Parts" might feel like it has been assembled from bits and pieces of other inspirational movies, that doesn't mean the fact-based drama is any less effective ...

| Jan 17, 2015

This blatantly big-hearted product isn't half as vibrant as the original 2005 Wired article on which it's based, and myopically neglects to address Arizona's troubling anti-immigration legislation through even a splash of hindsight.

| Jan 17, 2015

The fictionalized backstory for Cameron is superfluous and distracting...Still, with a storyline like this one, it cannot help being fun to watch.

| Original Score: B | Jan 16, 2015

Despite its clunkier elements, Matsueda's screenplay is alert to details that ground the film in the day-to-day lives of young people who are American in every way but technically.

| Jan 16, 2015

In the end, "Spare Parts" proves to be more exhausting than it is inspiring.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jan 16, 2015

At times, Spare Parts sails perilously close to the saccharine. But the film is a fine example of a message movie that does justice both to its important subject matter and to its characters' inner lives.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 16, 2015

A surprisingly effective and affecting fact-based drama, despite its reliance on several recycled elements.

| Jan 16, 2015

[The] screenplay ... plays down intellect in favor of corn and clich.

| Jan 15, 2015

Spare Parts stands and delivers on its own intriguing merits.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jan 15, 2015

Though based on a true story, "Spare Parts," like every other studio product, rehashes clichs from other movies so as not to unduly challenge the audience.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Jan 15, 2015

The characters in "Spare Parts" all go through changes that are true to many immigrants' decidedly mixed experiences in the American melting pot.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 15, 2015

If "Stand and Deliver" struck many as a hard-hitting look at life in the urban ghetto, "Spare Parts" seems like a Disney after-school special by comparison.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jan 15, 2015

"Spare Parts" is the kind of feel-good underdog movie that almost can't help getting waylaid by cliches. Happily, the real story is strong enough - and unlikely enough - to overcome most of those kinds of problems.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 15, 2015