Extreme Days

It's the world's first Christian extreme sports movie! It's enough to make you wonder what might be next if this film is a success (unlikely, given the audience of three it received at a major L.A. theater last Saturday night). Maybe Christian sci-fi ("Hey! These aliens don't accept a long-dead human being from our planet as their personal savior!") or Christian kung fu ("Thou shalt not defeat my crucifix style!")? Actually, the latter creeps into Extreme Days as part of a scene cribbed from the Police Academy films, a fight that seems a peculiarly unchristian way to solve a dispute. Leads Dante Basco, Ryan Browning, A.J. Buckley, Derek Hamilton and Cassidy Rae are game and even believable as college grads on a road trip to a grandparent's funeral, but the movie defeats them at every turn: At least half the film is shot on low-resolution video, and much of it consists of extreme sports filmed from such a distance you can't tell if the actual cast is performing the stunts. Watching ESPN's X Games on the small screen is more thrilling. The soundtrack features Christian-tinged nu-metal, including crossover sensation P.O.D., and the lack of profanity or even alcohol (when in Mexico, the gang downs shots of hot sauce, not tequila) makes the film suitable for all ages, except for those old enough to want actual content in their movies.