Airborne

Some of the best stunt/acting work I have ever seen. That inline skate race through a busy, incredibly fast downhill street course will stick with me forever. A lot of fun to watch.

Also very early film for Seth Green and Jack Black.

Airborne is mostly a teen movie marketed back in the early 90's when the rollerblade craze was starting to catch on. It's like the rollerblade companies needed some more exposure, so they gave these guys a bunch of money and said "hey, make the kids crave rollerblades". With all that aside, it is a rather enjoyable movie. Shane McDermott plays Mitchel, a surfer from California who must move to Ohio for a couple months. His performance reminds me of a teenage version of Keanu Reeves in Point Break. Seth Green plays the comic relief hapless friend, and Seth's parents are played by Edie McClurg(secretary from Ferris Buehlers) and Patrick O'Brien. The parents in this are hilarious and they work very well with the rest of the cast. The moviesfollows Mitchel as he tries to adjust to the very different Cincinatti atmosphere. He quickly becomes a heartthrob thus alienating him from every guy in town. So he pretty much spends the next hour trying to avoid trouble, but at every turn it seems to find him. In the course of this he ends up playing ice hockey/roller hockey and then rollerblading. The major flaw of this movie is the motive and identity of the villains. You see very little of them throughout the movie, and their dialogue is terrible. There is also a huge disparity in the look of the males and the females in this movie. Most of the male cast looks and are well into their 20's (with the exception of the Shane and Seth).. The girls in this movie look like a bunch of 12 year olds... But since there isn't a lot of interaction between the two, it doesn't detract from the movie too much. All in all, I enjoy this movie. I really like the approach they have taken with the Mitchel character.. He's just a young surfer dude who is a vehement pacifist. He is very cool and very not violent (hero's always breed violence in modern movies).. He also makes a couple of Zen-like observations which are fun to watch. The movie ends with a rollerblade race through downtown Cincinatti with the hero's facing the "Preps". The rollerblade race is the best part of the movie, and it is very well played out. This movie isn't oscar material, but it is much better then any other "roller-skating" movie, sport genre movie, and many disney-teen movies.. Jack Black also play's a small role in this, and is fun to watch. I give this 7 out of 10 stars.

Is it just me, or has everyone seen this movie about a hundred times on cable? Call it a guilty pleasure, but every time it came on, I just had to watch. I think it must be Seth Green's "Wiley Man" (Which I'm sure had a throwaway line homage in Austin Powers during the counseling scene). I'm glad to see him make it in the business.

The movie itself? A California surfer pretty boy tries to fit in at a new school and wins everyone over (including the school hottie) by skating. Tres deep.

6 out of 10, but you just gotta watch it again and again.

This movie is hilariously funny. Shane McDermott's monologues, meant to be serious at the time (When you see that perfect wave.. .) have aged into top notch hilarity, and Seth Green's scenes are pure gold, showing the then-young actor at his comedic best, year before Austin Powers. Throw in a then-unknown Jack Black and a bunch of funny little high school types, and then Edie McClurg on top of it all, and you have one of those perfect 1980s-early 90s films, with the perfection and classicness of which that can't seem to be replicated today. This is truely one of the littlest known, but funniest movies of all time. Those who fancy themselves amateur critics would call it a period piece, a comment on the culture clash that can exist within our own country, and a farce on rollerblades. I say the only disappointment in watching it is the realization that more modern movies are nothing like it.

After having some moderate success on a low budget kids soap opera, "Swan's Crossing," (which has developed a cult following thanks to the participation of actress Sarah Michelle Gellar), actor Shane McDermott starred in this minor, but intensely watchable sports-themed movie, mostly involving in-line skating, but also some hockey and skateboarding and surfing as well. "Airborne is a very 'physical' movie, that required the actors and countless extras to perform their own reckless stunts on camera. The action set piece, which makes up for the entire last third of the film, is really an exciting adrenaline rush. The camera work is quite amazing, putting the viewer right inside the high speed race down "The Devil's Backbone," a dangerously curvy downhill road that the skaters must share with car traffic, as they try and shove each other off the road and into rocks. I was especially impressed to see McDermott doing all his own stunt work. That is clearly not a double, and he is a very skilled skater. But this movie has more going for it than action. The photography is gorgeous with it's exotic angles and selection of a super bright color scheme that makes every scene look like it was filmed through stained glass windows. Even Cincinnati looks beautiful! Those surfing scenes look amazing in their blue splendor, especially on the big screen. Big names like Seth Green and Jack Black got their starts here. Seth is quite unforgettable as Wiley. We even get some romance that is very sweet, and some of the comedy is downright brilliant. Add in the music of Stewart Copeland and you have a 90's classic. I hadn't seen this since the 90's and re-watched it recently, worried that it might not be as good as I remembered. You know what? It's better, and it's proof that movies they are making today are just not as good as what they were producing back then. It's like movies had a soul, and a kind of innocence, that is blatantly absent from movies being churned out today. As family entertainment, I cannot recommend "Airborne" highly enough.