Fuoco, neve e... dinamite

Firstly, I must admit that my rating is based on pure bias. I've been watching this film on habitual repeat since I was a kid and I never get tired of it.

The plot lacks severely, some of the humour fails to make its mark and we are "treated" to a rather terrible song performed by one of the actors mid-way. Oh and Roger Moore seemed to be just there for... well, I don't know why he was there. But forget all that. None of it's important.

Why, if it's so bad, do I keep watching it? Let's start with the soundtrack - an amazing selection of songs that you can only find on the incredibly rare OST. And then the stunts - a serious amount of awe for the talent of the stunt experts showing off their stuff. I will confess that some of the lame jokes still even rise a laugh from me - as do some of the antics of the teams in the race.

So - if you want a fun stunt film with great music, this is an enjoyable watch. Bear in mind that those giving it a low rating have very valid points, but if you have any appreciation for a mindless romp, here it is.

A Grand Tour of every known logo in Europe; from Pepsi Cola, through Perrelli Tyres, with Swatch thrown in. It's like the brakes they once had at the drive-in movies listing the items for sale at the concession stand, except in this case, the stand is the size of a continent.

Curiously, the stunt work is VERY GOOD! If they had a half decent script, and lost most of those annoying logos, this could have been a really fun movie.

So sad.

Sorry for this: I expected Moore... ;)

I actually was expecting an action movie when I saw Roger Moore, but it was easy to tell in the first few minutes that this was not a pure action flick. There's plenty of action, but most of it seems like they just let a bunch of (albeit) good skiers, kayakers, parasailers, etc. go nuts while they filmed.

The plot was a bit weak for allowing this kind of action to go on.

The biggest disappointment though was the comedy. In places it was way too much and other places seemed to not go far enough.

Anyway, it's worth a watch if you're an extreme athlete or like some cool stunts, but definitely not a keeper in my movie collection.

WIlly Bogner is known for a lot of things and all of them skiing related.He's a former alpine skiier, he introduced stretch pants to the skiing world and he was the stunt cameraman for just about all the ski related movies out there.

So in 1990, the whole "extreme" sports world was just starting to get underway and he had the bright idea of making a movie involving lots of stunts including alpine skiing. The name he'd use for this was taken from his line of clothing called "Fire and Ice" and since there were explosions "dynamite" was added. Maybe this was meant as an homage to John D MacDonald's novel, "the Girl, the Gold Watch and Everything". Or maybe that's just wishful thinking on my part because this was nowhere near as good as that book or TV movie was.

The story is that Sir Roger Moore plays an aging aristocrat who owed money all around. But he dies and all his creditors and heirs show up wanting a piece of the action. However his $135 million fortune has been donated exclusively to some foundation and the only way to get it is to take part in the most extreme sports challenge of all time. So cue all the groups wanting to get his money, his heirs learning to live and work with each other, wacky hijinks and some pretty incredible stunts.

The stunts are really what sells this movie because they're all pretty cool. The story itself is utter garbage. And of course there's the elephant in the room which is the product placement. My God! The product placement alone in this movie is beyond even "Mac & Me" levels. We're talking Volkswagen, Club Med, Bayer, Chiquita Banana and loads of other ones are introduced as the groups competing for this money. One joke being the Chiquita Banana people only sending one guy because he just wants Sir Roger Moore to pay him for the bananas he bought.

There is no plot worth mentioning because you come here for the stunts and that's it.

Sir George (Roger Moore) fakes a spectacular suicide in order to make his three step-children participate in a stupid competition, a 'Megathon', in order to determine which of them will inherit his fortune. All this about the competition is in his will...and what follows is pretty lame.

The biggest problem with this German produced movie is that it NEVER is subtle in any way. The stunts are over the top, the characters are one-dimensional and obnoxious, and the film isn't much fun to watch. If this sounds attractive to you, by all means watch...but I think it's one of Roger Moore's worst films.