Boxboarders!(2007)

SHORT VERSION:
Ty defeats Alexander in a boxboard race to earn full ownership rights to the boxboards (Alexander had earlier put a patent on them to try to take the credit for inventing them, as well as all potential profits from them, away from Ty and his friend, James).

Because of a wager made between their fathers before the race, Ty saves his neighborhood from being demolished to make way for a casino that Alexander’s father’s client at his law firm was looking to build there.

After the race, Erik “Lizard Man” Sprague – who was there looking to market the boxboards with the winner of the race – gives Ty his business card and tells him to give him a call before departing for elsewhere.

The movie ends with Ty and his love interest, Stephanie, going on their first date together in his boxboard.

LONG VERSION:
A day after Alexander (Mitch Eakins) pulls a mean prank on Ty (James Immekus) and James (Austin Basis), he crosses paths with the duo at school and challenges them to a boxboard race, and he brings up how he is working on one as they speak. James is keen on doing the race, but Ty isn’t – until Alexander mentions that there is money involved in this because his lawyer parents, William (Christopher Cass) and Ruth (Melora Hardin), have found a guy who might be interested in marketing the boxboards once he sees them in action. Ty points out that he and James were the ones who created them, but Alexander informs the duo that he already got a patent put on them. Refusing to let Alexander steal their invention, Ty tells him that he and James can prove that they invented the boxboard first, but Alexander responds to this by telling him and James to go hire a lawyer and he will see them in court. Ty thus accepts his challenge for a race, but on the condition that whoever wins gets full ownership rights to the boxboards. Alexander initially refuses, saying that he would rather take his chances in court, but he changes his mind after Ty accuses him of being afraid that he is going to lose.

Later on, while Ty and James talk about the race with Ty’s father, Terry (Andy Hedden), he tells them that Alexander will spare no expense to have a top-notch boxboard made for this race so James should enter the race with his own boxboard so they can double their chances of winning. He also suggests that they each get a sponsor, both because it will boost their credibility and because the sponsor will subsidize their platform upgrades. Ty thus pays a visit to Stephanie (Michelle Alexis) while she is working a shift at the surf and skate shop owned by her grandfather, Doug (Douglas Rowe), to ask her to talk to her grandfather about having the shop sponsor him. However, Stephanie is not all that interested in talking to him because she is upset with him for being denied entry into a party at Tara’s (Michelle Pierce) place two nights ago that he invited her to (which he never knew had happened to her). Doug appears soon after, and after Ty has a short chat with him about boxboarding and admits that it is unsafe and illegal, Doug informs Ty that, while the chances of his store sponsoring him are not that great due to the fact that he just opened the store and the liability issues are huge, he will think about it nonetheless.

Meanwhile, Tara – a cold-hearted, conceited, spoiled, two-faced, manipulative rich classmate of Ty and James who seeks to become a celebrity through doing as little work as possible – finds out that MTV will be covering the boxboard race as part of a new reality show that they are doing, and knowing that James has an intense crush on her, she pays him a visit at his house. She uses her feminine charms to get him to agree to construct a boxboard for her so she can participate in the race and get noticed (even though she knows nothing about boxboarding or about how unsafe it is). Around the same time, William shows up at the auto body shop where Terry works to pick up his car that he had left for repairs, and he tells Terry that he knows of the boxboard race that is about to take place between their sons. He then offers a wager between the two of them: If Ty wins, he will convince his client to use an alternate site for the casino that they want to build and keep the homes of Terry and the rest of the Homeowners Association from being demolished to make way for it, but if Alexander wins, then Terry must cease and desist with his opposition and – since he is the most vocal member of the Association – convince the neighbors to do the same. Terry ends up agreeing to the wager.

Things turn sour for Ty and James when they decide to do a test run with Ty’s boxboard the day before the race on a hill somewhere in town. James brings a dead and bagged St. Bernard that he got from an animal shelter to use as a crash dummy, but he has also brought along his obnoxious younger brother, Rick (Hudson Thames), for the test since he is babysitting him in addition to their Chihuahua, Sigmund. While James and Ty are preoccupied with looking for a video camera in Ty’s truck to document the test with, Sigmund is drawn to the scent of the dead St. Bernard and runs into the boxboard, and Rick climbs into it to retrieve him. Ty and James then let the boxboard roll down the hill without checking inside of it first, and Alexander’s friends Sheldon (Ty Segall) and Jason (Josh Duhon) – under orders from Alexander to destroy the boxboard – ram the boxboard with their car and then speed off, unaware that it was not unoccupied. Both Rick and Sigmund get virtually every bone in their bodies broken, and they are next seen in – respectively – the hospital and the veterinarian’s office lying in full body casts. Ty blames himself for Rick getting injured, and while he is sitting outside the hospital and brooding over it, he is approached by Stephanie, who had heard about the accident and decided to come over to check on him. She tries to tell him that what happened to Rick wasn’t his fault, and she also offers to help him create a new boxboard, but Ty replies that he is done with boxboarding entirely and then walks away from her.

Ty later takes a stroll with Terry and tells him that he is quitting, both because of what happened to Rick and because he feels that the whole boxboarding idea has now become corrupted by the concepts of money and winning. Plus, he doesn’t have a boxboard to race with, and he feels that, even if he still wanted to take part in the race, he couldn’t get a new one properly created in time because he doesn’t have any money or a sponsor to assist with this. Terry understands his position, but gives him encouragement to try to continue, telling him that it is possible for him to get another boxboard built by tomorrow, plus he can give him some cash to help get it made and thinks that he can get him a sponsor. However, he tells Ty that none of those things matter if he isn’t passionate about this. Terry then brings up how he knows about his romantic interest in Stephanie and how he learned from James that she offered to help him, and he tells Ty that the fact she wants to help him is proof that she likes him and wants to get involved in his world. Ty admits that he likes her a lot, so Terry tells him that he can forget this race if he wants to, but if he has feelings for Stephanie, he’d better act on them or else he will regret it. Therefore, Ty visits Stephanie and Doug at their house that night, and he lets Stephanie know that he has changed his mind about the race and needs her help with constructing a new boxboard, and he mentions that he has gotten a sponsor who will pay for everything. When he brings up how he can’t get certain parts he needs for his board because all the skate shops are currently closed, Doug tells him that he can help him with that. Meanwhile, Alexander tells Sheldon and Jason that they must ensure his victory in tomorrow’s race, and they will do it by taking full advantage of how boxboarding has no rules. They then get to work on coming up with ideas to improve his chances of winning.

Ty’s new boxboard is constructed in time for the race, which is set to take place on a road that goes through a hillside suburban neighborhood, and the boxboarders will start at the very top of the hill and finish at the very bottom. While Ty, James, and the other racers are getting ready at the starting line, the businessman interested in marketing the boxboards shows up in a Humvee, and he reveals himself to be sideshow performer Erik “Lizard Man” Sprague (himself). After Terry hugs Ty and heads down to the finish line to wait for him, Stephanie enlightens Ty about the wager made between his father and William, having assumed that Ty already knew about it, and she kisses him on the cheek for good luck before she leaves to join Terry. Moments later, when Tara climbs into her boxboard, it completely rips apart at the seams, which James deliberately caused as part of a scheme to get Tara to ride with him. After she rebukes him for constructing such a poor boxboard for her, he extends his offer for her to ride along with him, and though she initially tells him that she will never ride with him in this lifetime or any other, he manages to manipulate her into coming with him when he tells her that he received word that MTV has arrived and that they are setting up at the finish line right now.

Shortly after the race gets underway, Alexander notices that Ty is already in first place, so he calls Sheldon – who is standing on a hill overlooking the road – and orders him to sabotage Ty. Sheldon thus throws balloons filled with oil onto the road to create a slick, and Ty drives over it and suffers a brief spinout, enabling Alexander to take the lead. However, when Sheldon laughs about this, he loses his footing and take a very rough fall down the hill and lands hard on the road. James and Tara eventually eliminate themselves when James lights an M-80 firework on the back of his boxboard to get an extra boost of speed, which results in them speeding out of control and going right over a hill into a person’s swimming pool. Sheldon calls Jason for help, and Jason mistakes Sheldon’s moans of pain for Alexander giving him his cue to launch his advantage tactic, so he removes some earlier-placed traffic cones from the road and allows a delivery truck to go up it. Just as Alexander gives Jason a call telling him to forget about performing his task since he is well ahead of everyone, the truck shows up and almost hits him and Ty, weakening his lead. Ty catches up to Alexander as they begin the final stretch of the race, and as they get closer to the end of it, Ty regains the lead and holds it until he crosses the finish line, scoring the victory.

Though Ty comes to a stop when he goes off the road and crashes into a tree, Alexander keeps on rolling until he crashes right through the wall of a house and onto a couch. Unfortunately for him, the house belongs to Zoltar (Ezra Buzzington), a mentally disturbed man who believes himself to be a “space vampire,” and Zoltar soon sees him, becomes very attracted to him, and then throws himself onto him. We also see that Tara knocked herself out and inhaled water from the pool when she and James crashed, but James manages to save her by performing CPR on her (and he steals a raunchy kiss while doing it). Erik Sprague gives Ty his business card and tells him to give him a call before he departs for elsewhere. Unwilling to accept their son’s defeat, William and Ruth start to think up of a way to get Ty’s victory nullified and have the race awarded to Alexander via legal means, but James’ father, Stephen (Stephen Tobolowsky) – having overheard them discussing this – approaches them and brings up how their son was involved with unscrupulous behavior involving this race. William and Ruth respond to this with hostility, and when they soon order him to leave them alone or else be slapped with a restraining order, Stephen casts aside his perpetually calm demeanor and decks Ruth before tackling and beating up William. As Terry walks over to them to break it up, Ty asks Stephanie if she would like to go out with him on a date sometime, and she agrees to.

The movie ends with Ty and Stephanie cuddling up inside his boxboard as they roll along a scenic road.