SKI SCHOOL
A film review by Ken Johnson
Copyright 1992 Ken Johnson
87 min., R, Comedy, 1990 Director: Damian Lee Cast: Dean Cameron, Tom Breznahan, Patrick Labyoteaux, Mark Thomas Miller, Spencer Rochfort, Darlene Vogel, Stuart Fratkin, Charlie Spradling
A well-known ski school has two divisions that continuously battle. One is battling to get the other thrown out. The other is battling to get revenge on the other one. Mixed in the battle are the new recruits.
SKI SCHOOL is done by Moviestore Entertainment and distributed by HBO home video. SKI SCHOOL, like the earlier films HOT DOG...THE MOVIE and SNOWBALLING (I have seen neither film, but have heard that they are good), attempts to make fun of the skiing industry. Although this film seems to try hard, it is inconsistently funny and only worth watching for below $1.50. On a scale of zero to five, I give SKI SCHOOL a three. SKI SCHOOL is rated R for explicit language, female nudity, and adult situations.
SKI SCHOOL has many great and hilarious moments; its main problem is that what is between them either there are boring bits, or gratuitous nudity which seems out of place and just put in for titillation. If the film had filled between the laughs with more laughs, I think it would have ended up much better. Many of the jokes are sight gags, so those who go more for subtle comedy will probably find the entire film too silly and stupid. Those of you who enjoy films like THE NAKED GUN 2 1/2: THE SMELL OF FEAR will probably find this film worth watching, once.
I found this film rather disappointing because it has so much potential in some areas. Too often the joke gets lost along the way, or the joke gets changed and is no longer funny. The cast is relatively good, but it shows that they are B movie actors. Like most B movies, some of the cast really stand out. In this film there are two, Charlie Spradling and the guy who looks and sounds like Rob Scheider of "Saturday Night Live" (sorry, I couldn't figure out which one he was). These two deserve more than what this film ended up being.
Even though the film was made in 1990, my local video store just recently got it. I have been waiting a while to see this film and am disappointed that it didn't reach my expectations. Oh well, it was better than the last Moviestore Entertainment film I saw, which was MEATBALLS 4. Then again, if I had seen the Moviestore Entertainment name on the videocassette box, based on my past experiences with their films, my expectations would not have been so high.
Ken J. blj@mithrandir.cs.unh.edu
.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews