Ein Engel auf Glatteis

For years I've watch all the figure skating movies I'e come upon. This one has become my favorite. It goes beyond the story of a skating career and casts an amused but compassionate glance on the human condition.

It is surprising with all the modern interest in unconventional sexual themes that movies where the member of one sex experiences the life of another are so uncommon. I don't mean transvestite stories like TOOTSIE, but plots wherein a person undergoes a real change. This gives a film a real chance to explore sex roles, a theme ostensibly so important to modern consciousness. There have been some such films, but these have been shallow comedies going for simpleminded yucks, like "Dr. Jeckyll and Ms Hyde" and "Switch" that really have nothing to say about the being a better humanbeing. Wouldn't it be better to address ideas of courage, compassion, and resilience in the face of difficulty? I thought Sarah's story of coming to grips with a new kind of life, of making peace with the past and moving on to the future, of friendship and striving to excel, made the story as warm as it was funny.

In criticism, it was too bad that the film didn't deal more with Sarah's social adjustments and less with skate training. Time to do so could have been salvaged from, for instance, that street hockey scene that was pretty much a throwaway. I think Ms Tom was a little too mature for the way the role was written and an actress who looked the age of Tara Lipinski would have been more suitable. Nonetheless, Tom does a good job and it is a shame that she doesn't get the chance to do more movie work (It is also a shame that her NANNY role was so restricted, and she was never allowed to break out of the background, as Nikki Cox did in UNHAPPY EVER AFTER).

Like "Heaven Can Wait," "Ice Angel" is clearly inspired by the classic "Here Comes Mr. Jordan." I hold it is superior to the former movie in thought and content, though shot on a small budget.

I'm amused by Nancy Kerrigan fans (which I count myself one)who express the wish for more screen time for our star. The few lines she had in the movie showed her limitations in delivering a dramatic line. She is a wonderful skater, but not an actress. Tara Lipinski did much better as the second lead.

Comparing it to Heaven can wait, which was made on a major motion picture's budget, at the pace of a feature film (twice as much time to film as a tv movie) is hardly fair.

This film is quite nice for a low budget film produced for a cable network. The lead actress was good in her role. Her performance was on a par with Ellen Barkin in Switch, as a friend of mine commented.

The pace of the story is good, and the fantasy elements are kept believable by the writing and acting skills. There were some performances that were simplistic, but mostly for secondary performances, not those of the lead characters. The parents did border on being parodies of dumb parents however in a few scenes.

Skating scenes were also believable.

The film may not be an Oscar winner, but it had heart and soul, and relied on more than cliches to tell the story. (Not that there were no cliches!) But it was a good, enjoyable film I would watch again.

I saw this movie on Channel 5 while flicking through to see what was on, and normally, if a program is absolutly terrible I'll get up and leave to do something more productive rather than sit there and suffer.

This film kept me seated though. I found it slightly hilarious and it had a pretty funny plotline which kept me captivated for the length of the film.

A little bit cheesy, yes, but it was entertaining. I gave it a 9 out of ten for a nice afternoon movie that didn't make me cringe with boredom or cheesed off with rubbish jokes.

A nice little film with good acting by Nicholle Tom.

Ever heard the critics' expression, "trying to give this movie a bad review is like trying to kick a puppy?" Well, it's most certainly true here. Make no mistakes, this is a bad film - the plot goes far beyond the realms of the improbable whilst somehow fitting in every cliché going as hockey star Matt is killed and reincarnated as a female ice skater.

The first half of the film concentrates on Matt's gender dysphoria as he tries to adapt to life as a girl, which is handled in a light hearted and, dare I say it, funny way. The second half of the film advances the plot as Matt/Sarah tries to make it as a figure skater.

This is mindless, made-for-tv viewing, but as I said at the start of this review, it's got a certain naive charm and a great feel-good factor that makes this a watchable film, although the fact that I was too far gone to change channel probably helped. Though I wanted to, I couldn't find it in myself to actually dislike this movie.

Even though it's spliced throughout with five minute no-dialogue-just-song montages to pad it out, the charm of this movie alone carries it through and above the drudgery of daytime TV. Watch this if you want to while away a bored hour and a half, it's a 'bad' film, but its not a bad film to watch.

I thought this film, though pretty much the same as many other body switching films, was good fun. It was easy to watch, and didn't require any real thought on the viewers part. Nicholle Tom was brilliant in the part of Sarah, and even thought there was no major Hollywood talent to make it a hit, it's worth watching just for the Feel Good factor.