THE MIGHTY

Actor Elden Henson, who plays Max in the film version of The Mighty, delivers the understated first-person narrative of a boy whose growth has outpaced his academic abilities, a learning-disabled misfit giant in the adolescent world of middle school exclusion. Henson tells the story straight. He projects a creditable Max in his barefoot summer before eighth grade. That summer, Max says, he got a brain when a brilliant boy whose body didn't grow moved into the duplex down the street and into Max's life and heart. Henson's Max drops the last syllable of every sentence half an octave in his earnestness and rush to tell the story of the summer that cemented his friendship with Kevin, nicknamed Freak, and the year that marked its passing. Without sentimentality, with little inflection but plenty of feeling, Henson tells the story of the incredible union that made each boy more than he could ever have been alone. T.B. ©AudioFile, Portland, Maine [Published: OCT/NOV 98]