0 stars
Featuring cheap production "value" and a storyline that lacks even a slightly interesting plot, "Extreme Ops" should never have been made.
As Will, actor Devon Sawa (who has made an "extreme" shift from his days in "Final Destination") sports an extremely arrogant smirk and 20 more pounds. Jana Pallaske plays Kittie, a giggly Angelina Jolie look-alike, attempting to portray a rocker chick with no limits. Viewers will understand how awful her performance is the moment she appears on film, as a rocker "grrl" in a far-from-cool punk band. Not even her blue-streaked hair and scatter-brained 'tude can justify this poor casting choice.
Both play daredevil snowboarders/skiers hired by a TV commercial director to fly to Austria, where they are hired to appear in a camcorder advertisement while outrunning an avalanche. But when they arrive at their location - a half-finished mountaintop resort - they run afoul of generically scruffy Eastern European terrorists using the place as a hideout. Now they must extreme-board for their lives.
Director Christian Duguay ("The Art of War," "Screamers") must have had an "extreme"-ly hard time editing scenes in this movie. Although the directors of most action movies can edit together convincing scenes of mountaintop action, maybe the snowboards made Duguay's job harder. To say the action scenes from "Extreme Ops" looked like a novice threw them together would be insulting to those who are just starting out - most beginners could do a better job than Duguay and his editors.
All the scenes include up-close, in-your-face sequencing. Using the sloppiest techniques possible, Duguay attempts to show what action is. The whole movie seems pieced together, lacking any kind of smooth transition from scene to scene. Since viewers are constantly reminded of how fake the film seems, it is difficult to concentrate on the terrorists lurking in the background.
Scenes where Will and Kittie are supposed to be riding snowboards with other people are ruined when it becomes obvious that the other "characters" are actually dummies. Slapdash editing makes it obvious that characters that jump off snowboards with expressions of fear have had their hair and makeup retouched after quick cutaways.
With extreme action that lacks a convincing storyline, "Extreme Ops" is truly pointless. Commenting on the plot is difficult at best because it was filled with holes. Overall, the entire film can be summed up in one line: terrorists with helicopters and kids with snowboards, all on a mountain in the middle of nowhere.
Promos for the film promise edge-of-your-seat action without the use of CGI-effects, but Will and Kittie would have been more convincing if they'd been played by CGI characters like Jar-Jar Binks and Dobby the House Elf.
Although a different director and a few more rewrites might have helped "Extreme Ops," a better decision would have been to not make the movie at all.
