When it comes to movies on Sport or games, most people are huge buffs. The nail biting excitement, , the non-stop excitement that keeps you rooted till the edge of the seat climax sequences, all make for an extremely heady mixture but an extremely satisfying experience…… right?
Sadly not always…. Not when there is the extremely classical and beautiful sport of Figure Skating involved. And definitely not when there is a cast that includes the likes of Matt Lanter (8 simple Rules; Disaster Movie) and Francia Raisa (really nothing worth mentioning) and a notorious director who goes by the name of Stuart Gillard (quite well known in the Television circuit – one Emmy nomination some 30 + years back – maybe the oscars are quite a distance away Stuart @ this rate that is)
In a case like the above, you get a certified Chick Flick!!!! Which I have confessed in the past, that I have nothing against. But stop masking them as Sports movies. Sports Movies are intense with a capital “I”. Sports movies have passion so thick you need a hacksaw to chop through it. Sports movies have everything that a normal thriller would have but with just that little bit extra which connects to the heart of every single human being better than a thriller would – the complete unadulterated joy of winning against all odds. Stuart Gillard does try to put all of these into Cutting Edge III but as they say comes a cropper. My guess is actually because he tried too damn hard.
Zack Conroy (Matt Lanter) is your super rich, gorgeous looking kid who super awesome @ figure skating and is gunning for the world championship along with Celeste Mercier (Sarah Gadon). Both are comfortably poised to take the nationals hands down when disaster strikes and Celeste injures herself badly which puts her out of the running. Now our chocolate boy has to hunt for a new partner, who he goes to look for @ a ice hockey rink. Turns out that the person who he is jostling with for the puck is the petite (read mouth wateringly delicious) Alejandra “Alex” Delgado (Francia Raisa). Now Alex can do her bit of skating and leaves Zack tongue tied and twisted. And so Mr. Chocolate Boy Ice Skater goes and tells his agent cum manager cum coach, Bryan Hemmings (Stefano DiMatteo) that he has found the one and only replacement for Celeste.
But hello – Mr. Hemmings is not about to pick up some random skater off the streets and put them up for the world championship. So he huffs and he puffs his way through the first few weeks and then calls it quits with our lead pair who is now left with no coach. So they go to Jackie Dorsey (Christy Carlson Romano) who in her time was the world champion to take up the good cause. At this point of time it is important to point out to the readers that the movie is called Cutting Edge III. Jackie Dorsey was the lead character in Cutting Edge II (2006) and her parents were the lead characters in Cutting Edge (1992) which I am quite certain would have been far better movies.
Nevertheless, Ms. Dorsey very reluctantly accepts the honour of coaching potential world champions and goes about setting her rules as always. In the bargain, she actually makes one extremely relevant and smart move – She gets her protégés to overcome the weakness of experience with each other through executing one seriously brilliant move that would get most eyeballs popping. Will our lead cutie pair be able to pull this one off through hours and hours of training and the romancing in between?
Cutting Edge III is a classic example of what a Sports movie should not be. It is fine to have an element of romance but not soak it in overnight. It is fine to have even an element of double crossing and vice to get some excitement in but not @ every single corner. It is fine to have a love triangle but to get it into some warped pentagon is downright ridiculous. At the risk of repeating myself – Mr. Gillard – Seriously get back into movie school if you really want to make progress in your career with movies.
The only thing worth seeing in the movie is some 2.5 minutes of breath taking figure skating shots which are really well done. But all in all very poor effort – 3 on 10 – this time i am not being generous
cutting edge really?? why u wasting ur time
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