Did you know Roku makes movies? They do. Over Christmas, I reviewed the disappointing Jordin Sparks Christmas film they put out, and earlier this year, I tried to sit through some ill-fated road trip comedy with Sophia Bush and Lauren Holly. My heart and soul just weren’t in it, so I passed on reviewing that one. I can’t even remember what the movie was called or anything else about it, except that it involved a mother-daughter road trip. I remember being shocked that Lauren Holly’s career is still somehow chugging along, and I’m always a little sad when I see Sophia Bush in something that feels like a desperation move. She’s one of my favorite actresses and far more talented than casting directors seem willing to give her credit for. But that’s not really true of Jesse Metcalfe. Let’s be fair.
Metcalfe broke onto the scene because of Desperate Housewives. He was the cute young gardener who mowed the lawn and got Gabrielle all hot and bothered, and his career since then has certainly fluctuated. He’s had a couple of highs, like John Tucker Must Die and his role on the Dallas reboot, but he’s also coasted through a lot of things that I don’t think anybody is watching. I did check out an independent film of his last year, but that was on a lark. So, seeing him anchoring a Roku movie in 2026 is somewhat amusing, although perhaps not entirely surprising.
Roku seems to be trying to do what every other streaming service eventually tries to do, which is recreate the Hallmark experience. You know the one. Perfect little worlds, meet-cutes, adorable PG relationships, and people falling in love either for the first time or after a very long absence because they were widowed, divorced, abandoned, or their spouse was abducted by aliens. Whatever goes on over at the Hallmark Channel. I don’t know. They make far too many movies for me to stay up to date with their output. Summer Sparks certainly feels like it could have aired there. Then again, it’s so aggressively inoffensive that it probably could have aired anywhere.
The film centers around a single dad played by Metcalfe, who is ready to mingle, possibly after losing his wife. His son is super into cooking, learning recipes connected to his mother and obsessing over spices. This reminded me of the independent film Big Boys, where the main character was going camping and didn’t want to leave behind his spices. It didn’t make much sense for a camping trip, but it did help define the character as this little future Top Chef roughing it in the wilderness with his own spice rack. Here, the kid is going off to camp, but it’s not a normal summer camp. It’s cooking camp. So, the fact that he wants to bring his culinary supplies makes a little more sense. He’s apparently in training to become the head chef of his own restaurant as soon as he gets through high school and, presumably, middle school. I don’t remember if the movie ever actually establishes his age, but he seems somewhere in the 11-to-13 range.
At camp, father and son encounter a mother-daughter combo, and Metcalfe playfully flirts with the mother until, of course, the movie puts them on the inevitable collision course toward love. You have seen this movie before. Maybe not Summer Sparks specifically, but you have absolutely seen this movie. It’s deeply predictable, kind of boring, and frequently dull. Everybody seems to be smiling their way through the entire thing, so I’m not entirely sure acting was involved. Maybe Roku just told everyone to look pleasant and hoped that would be enough.
The only reason I bothered mentioning Summer Sparks at all is because it actually has audio description. My God, of all the things we can take the time to put audio description on, this Roku movie actually commissioned an audio description track. Not only that, but it’s readily available on a service you don’t have to pay anything to subscribe to. So, I guess I’ll slide in and acknowledge that I saw Summer Sparks and that the audio description is at least passable. There isn’t much for the track to work with because there isn’t much happening in the film, but it gets the job done. The movie follows exactly the path you assume it will, hits all the expected beats, and arrives exactly where you knew it was going.
Much like the Jordin Sparks movie, which I really wanted to be good because I am a big Jordin Sparks fan, this is just more inoffensive material being pushed toward an audience that is possibly comatose on the couch. I can’t think of a compelling reason to actually choose Summer Sparks unless you’re afraid of watching something you might become invested in because you’re about to fall asleep. This is a great movie to fall asleep to. Deep down inside, you already know how it ends. If you happen to drift off somewhere in the middle, fine. Enjoy your nap. When you wake up, everything will probably be exactly where you expected it to be.
But that’s not a great reason to recommend a film, and the sheer existence of audio description isn’t enough either. I wish Jesse Metcalfe the best moving forward, along with whoever played his love interest here, because I’m considerably less familiar with her. But Summer Sparks is just so dull and so incredibly generic that it feels less like a movie and more like something designed to occupy space on a streaming menu. Roku makes movies. Now you know. Unfortunately, Summer Sparks isn’t much of an argument for why they should.
Rotten: 3.7/10
