Aspen Extreme

Like many skiers in Colorado, as a ritual I pull out this DVD every season to get stoked for another year.

The transformative story about a Midwesterner moving to a ski resort and finding himself is compelling and often repeated in reality here in Colorado. Although the acting and details are not all together believable, the story line is strong enough to keep one's interest between ski scenes.

As a retired ski patroller however, the crevasse scene is hard to swallow. I have never seen a water filled crevasse in the middle of winter like the one T. J. fell into while skiing in the back country. Especially near 14,000 feet. But hey, Hollywood is at sea level and it adds to the drama. Despite this naive gaff, the movie has great ski scenes featuring Doug Coombs one of the great extreme skiers. The mountain scenery is also breath taking and was clearly filmed in Aspen.

The avalanche scenes on the other hand look all to real.

Bored and not able to sleep, I caught this film on late night television last night. I was intrigued by the opening credits, especially when I saw the names of fine Canadian actor Paul Gross and another favourite Trevor Eve, who starred in the wonderful British mystery series Heat of the Sun. I am also a fan of the old Chicago Hope, and it was nice to see Peter Berg in a very different role.

I am not a ski buff, and this film is not Citizen Kane. However, I found myself enjoying this flawed piece of work very much. Sure, the plot is goofy, implausible, predictable, and full of discontinuities. But I genuinely liked the heroes, took pleasure in their successes, felt sadness in their setbacks. Other reviewers have commented already on the gorgeous location photography and the skiing.

With commercials, this film ran almost 2.5 hours on TV, and I had little difficulty sitting through it. Sure, we all knew there would be a happy ending and the good guy would get the girl, but it still was an enjoyable bit of viewing on the way.

Worth a look if you are not a ski buff but like mindless romance/action. Must-see if skiing is your life.

A "must have" for every skier with a vcr. Other fans have already given many positive comments so I will just say that after ten years it's still standing proudly in the shelf close to the TV-set among other classics like The fisher king and The Matrix. And on a regular basis I also put this one on and enjoy..... Of course I know what happens next, but so what? But how long do a videotape last ? I'm just hopefully waiting for the "Directors Cut" - "Special double edition" DVD. Including 2 hours of extra ski-footing, Interwievs with stunt-doubles (who actually are ski stars) and a lot of new scenes, not seen before, and ....and......Well I'm just dreaming. And waiting for the winter and the powder...

Aspen Extreme is in the mold of movies like All the Right Moves, Youngblood etc. nothing special but just a fun little movie. Paul Gross and Peter Berg are two guys from Michigan who go to Aspen as ski instructors (??!) and explore their new vista. Berg of Chicago Hope and Gross of Due South make an excellent partnership, I found myself rooting for them from the beginning. Gross is the pretty boy who captivates both the rich teaser and the super cute radio jockey (played by the captively cute Teri Polo). The movie is humorous for much of the first half, but then takes a darker turn, and tends to drag on in the second half as well. The ski scenes are okay but I felt like I was watching a specialty adventure sports channel, in other words it was overkill. Otherwise it's just a late night timewaster which I expected to be boring but instead was fun and a good little movie to watch with a lady friend. 5 out of 10.

This was a great movie. I've always thought it was. Like a lot of people have mentioned it's a great skier's movie. I'll watch it a couple of times over the summer along with all of the other ski movies that I either have, i.e. Hot Dog, Warren Miller, etc... It makes one want to get up and change jobs and lifestyle and keeps my powder fever under control until winter arrives again.

I don't agree with some users comments on the soundtrack though. I think the songs on the soundtrack fit the movie very well. In fact I wish the soundtrack was available because I like the songs in this movie, especially, 'Start the Car' by Jude Cole, 'The Driver' by Terry Reid, and 'Best inside you' by David Baerwald.

It is a sad movie with a similar plot as Top Gun in some respects, but I think the strong friendship of TJ and Dexter separates this movie from the testosterone driven Top Gun(which I think is also a great movie). Not to mention this is one of the few ski movies of the 80s/90s that was not a comedy.