X Games 3D: The Movie

As a repackaging of last year's Summer X Games using the latest in 3-D camera technology, Disney's limited-run extreme sports doc "X Games 3D: The Movie" is an uneven thrill-circus display that too often feels like TV writ large and loud rather than the kind of cinematic reimagining that defined the surf-flick genre.

Thanks to an abundance of camera rigs, action sports diehards may burst with excitement over the stereoscopic visuals that give the tense, injury-ridden showdown between megaramp skateboard superstars Danny Way and Bob Burnquist a big-screen renewal after all that YouTube repetitiveness. But do we really have to hear the insipid ESPN announcer voice-overs as well? ("I'm in shock dot com! Log on!")

Director Steve Lawrence ventured outside the arena too to capture the training regimens of his subjects -- who include motocross greats Ricky Carmichael, Travis Pastrana and Kyle Loza, and skate-and-snowboard master Shaun White -- but these downtime scenes/interviews mostly act as insight-deficient setups for the event footage. It features calmer but still-purply narration (read by Emile Hirsch).

While the competitions themselves are undoubtedly impressive achievements in the daredevil arts, as a record of what these mentally tough participants do, it too often feels like a warmed-over energy drink.

 

"X Games 3D: The Movie" Movie Trailer

 

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X Games 3D: The Movie MPAA rating: PG (for extreme sports action and accidents).

Running time: 1:35.

Featuring: Shaun White, Travis Pastrana, Danny Way, Ricky Carmichael, Bob Burnquist and Kyle Loza.

Written and directed by Steve Lawrence; produced by Phil Orlins, Tori Stevens and Jason Brenek. A Walt Disney Pictures release.

 

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