X-Games 3D: The Movie (**½)

Directed by: Steve Lawrence
Featuring: Danny Way, Bob Burnquist, Shaun White, Travis Pastrana, Ricky Carmichael, Kyle Loza, Emile Hirsch (Narrator)

Seen: May 8^th 2010

**½ Out of ****

X-Games: The Movie is a documentary about the yearly event hosted to upstage anything the Olympics might deem as crazy. The people at this event take things a step further, almost to a level of art where design and planning become part and parcel of the sport (if you could call it that). These folk put life and limb on the line for a few minutes of fame in very specific circles, where they are idolised. Danny Way and Bob Burnquist are shown in the extreme skateboarding arena, Shaun White in both skateboarding and snowboarding, Ricky Carmichael and Kyle Loza on the motorcycle ramps (aiming for both height and jump-dexterity), and Travis Pastrana in rally racing (as his body is too broken to continue with anything else…).

We learn quite a few things about these people, mostly that they are actually just normal people who want to do and be the best at one single thing. Danny Way is so devoted to his extreme acts of skateboarding that he has tattooed the word skate (SK8) on his ring finger and he jumps the Great Wall of China with a broken foot. He also has an enormous and enormously intimidating skate ramp at home, and by intimidating I mean a man-made mountain of gargantuan size, he must be rich then, you assume. Bob Burnquist is the X-Games mega-ramp champ for the last two years running, and in this movie he competes with Danny Way, who again breaks or seriously maims a foot, for a third title. Shaun White is the only person on earth to ever win gold at the Summer and Winter X-Games as well as the official Winter Olympics. He also looks like a midget in his dialogue scenes as he sits on a bed that must be built for about 15 people. Ricky Carmichael is called the GOAT (Greatest of All Time), and he doesn’t seem to mind the title. He can ramp his motorcycle over a 33-foot (approximately 10 metres) crossbar with relative ease. Kyle Loza is a genius when it comes to aerial tricks on his off-road motorcycle, doing tricks he has renamed from the Electric Death to the Electric Doom. He perfects these tricks in a giant pile of sponges and mattresses at what looks like an urban rubbish pile before showcasing them to the world (and also before killing himself with an unperfected trick). Travis Pastrana is probably the biggest legend of them all, as he has “reverted” to rally racing as he claims that with age he must get a cage. He is one of the X-Games motorcycle legends and now trains other motorcyclists, he has won the Rally America Drivers Championship 4 times already and has a seriously screwed up list of injuries – he does not believe in preserving his body at all.

The movie is impressive in the way the extreme sporting is presented in 3D, with the added depth creating a sense of reality you only ever guess at when seeing these kinds of events on a normal television at home. These guys must be really crazy, and it shows in the way they continue breaking themselves in attempts at landing the next big trick. There is a lot of talk in the movie including some cool statements around pushing yourself that extra bit, but there are also some clunkers like: “Who wants an A in history when you can get an X” – Seriously, people were paid to think up this stuff?

It is amazing seeing what these guys achieve, and how they persist to get there, but at the end of the day it really is just a bunch of rich-folk who don’t need to do much else in life and while they entertain a few now, they will also grow old and reminisce about their lack of responsibility as they nurse those injuries one day. But that is not truly what X-Games is about – it is about the extreme things being done – just sad that the movie takes such a long time to get to each moment of insanity/craziness/excellence these guys produce.