Cloud 9: L'ultime figure

Typical Disney movie trying to bank and promote an upcoming child star. As with all Disney stuff this is meant for the rich people out there. You have the nice clothes and settings. The movie was alright for what is it and again being a Disney movie after all. I have to say the production value appears to be above average though.

I didn't even get through the movie as every scene with Dove shows off her bright red and puffy lips. Now I find some people like this and I guess it is done to sexualize her but did we have to make it so big? If you google her and look at the photos she doesn't have the puffy lips. The problem with this is, of course, whenever she talks it appears unnatural. To me, it is gross. The close up gives me shivers. Reminds me of that one girl in the Transformers movie that had such a bad pair of puffy lips I cringed everything she was on screen.

Meet Kayla, an accomplished snowboarder who was kicked out of her team and forced to train with Will, a former champion snowboarder who is working as a coach after a video of him became a hit on the internet and ended his career.

If all preppy had parents like that, however, the payboys badboys usually have parents like Nick's, extremely permissive, arrogant, biased and ambitious (reminded me of the Nelsinho Piquet accident fraud)... good heart that redeems itself, the former injured athlete who overcomes himself, leads a team and trusts in his talent, and in the end everyone learns a beautiful lesson in respect, forgiveness and perseverance...

Once again the Disney Channel has provided us with a typical story of self-discovery, laced with conflict and the formation of new friendships. In this story we meet Kayla Morgan (Dove Cameron), a pampered snowboarder whose Father owns the ski-lodge where she snowboards. Also heading the cast is Will Cloud (Luke Benward), a snowboarder turned dog groomer after a particularly memorable fall during his failed attempt at the coveted Cloud 9. When it is revealed to Kayla that she only won a place on the snowboarding team as a result of her Father owning the resort, she turns to Will to learn the Cloud 9 to prove to everyone that she truly is the best female snowboarder around.

Both Cameron and Benward delivered good performances throughout the film, though there were times when their chemistry together was not very believable. The entire cast, including Mike C. Manning (Nick Swift), Amy Farrington (Andrea Cloud) and Jeffrey Nordling (Sebastian Swift) brought this story to life in a very believable and enjoyable manner. It is a shame that Kiersey Clemons (Skye Sailor) did not have a more prominent role in the film as her acting was very enjoyable to watch. Praise must be given to the stunt coordinator Kathy Jarvis and to the stunt doubles who did an incredible job with the snowboarding scenes. My eyes were glued to the screen, anxious to see whether they would land their jumps or not, and I found myself breathing a sigh of relief when they did.

The story itself progressed at a reasonable pace despite its predictability. There never seemed to be a time where the story was lacking or where the pace of the film was too fast. Two big thumbs up to the screenwriters Don D. Scott, Justin Ware and Katie Wech for penning such a captivating film.

Utah, USA is a beautiful place and that beauty was reflected in this film. The scenery in Cloud 9 was incredible and was a perfect back-drop for a film centered on snowboarding.

The ending let this film down in as much as it was disappointing and relatively anti-climatic. The film itself was very enjoyable to watch and I found myself waiting anxiously to see what the final outcome would be, and though the film was very predictable, I found myself disappointed with how it ended.

All in all this was a very enjoyable, although predictable, Disney Channel Original Film, and is deserving of the 7/10 rating given.

Cloud 9 is one of those forgotten movies. It had potential but fell flat. It's missing some key elements that make me fall in love with Disney movies. The acting was pretty good and story was interesting. I thought the snowboarding would be boring but it wasn't. And I enjoyed the chemistry between Dove Cameron and Luke Benward. They had a great kiss scene. The only thing I didn't like was how they barely showed Luke's character snowboard. He went through a traumatic thing and they just glossed over it. Also, I liked the main song until it got to the chorus, and now it's still stuck in my head.

One of the recent Disney Channel Original Movie starring Dave Cameron. Surely I decided to watch it after seeing her in 'Descendants'. An okay film. There's nothing special in the story. It was the same old, same old sports film. Like, a girl who loves snowboarding loses her spot in the team and the boyfriend at the same time. Now she trains hard to prove them all wrong. Would she achieve successfully what she has undertaken is the remaining part of the story that ends with a major snowboarding competition.

As usual, a good film for the television audience and particularly the kids. It is a kind of inspiration, but full of predictable. At least I have learnt a few stuff about snowboarding, yet I felt it should have done a lot more with that platform. The other sub-plot like dogs were not bad. So overall the narration looked decent, until the end. If someone says the film is bad, that could be because of the way it was concluded. Too plain, but it always works for a production like Disney's. You can watch it, though, remember there are many fine DCOM that you can try than this.

6/10