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EXTREME OPS

Review by Chastity Campbell

Stars: Devon Sawa, Bridgette Wilson-Sampras, Rufus Sewell
Director: Christian Duguay
Audio: 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround
Video: 1.85:1 Anamorphic Widescreen & 1.33:1 Standard Fullscreen
Studio: Paramount
Features: See Review
Length: 93 Minutes
Release Date: May 6, 2003

Film **

Extreme sports have been all the rage in the past few years.  From Skysurfing to Street Luge Super Mass, there is no limit to how far some people will go for an adrenaline rush. 

Extreme Ops combines skiing, snowboarding, and an advertising campaign, with some escaped international terrorists.  What do you get when you put all that in a blender?  Not much, but the stunts were absolutely awesome! 

Silo, Kittie, Will, and Chloe, have been flown to Austria to help put the finishing touches on an advertising campaign.   They have been given one job to do which will involve their favorite sport, skiing!   There’s one catch…the skiing they will be doing is in front of an avalanche!  That’s right. they have to ski downhill in front of a manmade avalanche, and it’s thrilling them to no end!

When one of the filming crew is mistaken as a CIA agent by some terrorists who are hiding out up in the mountains near their base camp, the real fun begins.

It’s high speed skiing and near death experiences as the bad guys try to take out what they fear are agents on their tail, and the fearless downhill skiers learn a lesson or two in the art of avoiding gunfire!

The casting for this movie was very nicely done.  The actors all complimented each other nicely, however, the script seemed to have missed the ski lift so to speak! 

Rufus Sewell plays the leader and director of this advertising campaign.  Sewell is a very strong character actor.  He has a face you can’t forget and a soft spokeness that helps him to stand out each time he hits the big screen.  Most often cast in the role of the villain, Sewell took the reigns of leading man and hero in this flick and manages to do a decent job, despite the scripting.

Devon Sawa (Slackers, Final Destination) and Bridgette Wilson-Sampras (The Wedding Planner, I Know What You Did Last Summer) share the screen with Sewell and go quite a long way to helping this movie shine off the powder as well as on.  

If you are an extreme sports lover, you have to see this movie.  The stunts in combination with some helicopter assisted camera work was absolutely amazing.  

The story itself didn’t quite keep me glued to my seat as I had hoped, and most of the dialogue I could have done without.  However, this flick is only 93 minutes long and the skiing was great, so the time spent watching was worth it.

Video ***

Given for your viewing pleasure in a 1.85:1 Anamorphic Widescreen Format & 1.33:1 Standard Fullscreen Format, this movie is visually stunning.  The locations chosen for this film helped to enhance the crisp, and clean images transferred to DVD.  There was no dirt or graininess visible in any of the images, and the lighting was very nicely done.

Audio ***

This disc is presented in 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround Sound.  The overall mix was balanced very nicely.  The audio levels were pretty constant throughout, and no obvious, dips or drops could be heard.   The balance between the background noise, music bed, and dialogue was really nice as well.  There was no time when any one thing was overwhelming the other. 

A very nice soundtrack accompanies this movie and helps propel the audio experience beyond the mark of just average.

Features **

This DVD was late for class the day the features were handed out, but not absent!  

A preview for Star Trek Nemesis (which I can’t wait to see because I missed it in theatres) and Abandon starring Katie Holmes are the biggest tricks this disc has to offer.

You can view this DVD in Widescreen or Standard Fullscreen format.  The option of listening to this movie in either English or French Dolby Digital Surround is also, yours for the choosing. 

Summary: