I saw this movie years ago, when I had no idea what was going on, and I loved it. I've just watched it again for an article I was writing and damn, it's trash!
But it's wonderfully sill trash and everyone with a silly 90's sense of humor will enjoy it. It's not as funny as it should be, and they miss so many tricks that I think are obvious, but hey, it's all easy in hindsight I suppose.
I won't write too much here as it'll ruin my article!, but it really is worth a watch if you don't take things too seriously!
Ski Patrol
1990
Action / Comedy / Sport
Ski Patrol
1990
Action / Comedy / Sport
Keywords: sportssnow skiingski resortski
Plot summary
The Snowy Peaks ski patrol is one diverse crew. They consist of Jerry, the senior member who loves skiing and is in love with Ellen, a ski school instructor at Snowy Peaks; Iceman, singer and master of impressions; Eddie, the demolition and explosives expert; Stanley, who has failed to make the patrol seven years in a row; and Tiana, a foreign exchange patroller who likes Stanley. While having fun and keeping the mountain safe, they try to save the lodge from greedy land developer, Sam Maris.
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
Director
Tech specs
720p.WEB 1080p.WEBMovie Reviews
Trash but I love it!
The producers of Police Academy reuse the same framework minus the name to unoffensive but diminishing results.
At the Snowy Peaks Ski Lodge, wise cracking slacker Jerry Cramer (Roger Rose) works Ski Patrol with a group of other misfits who are under the command of tightly wound head Murray (Leslie Jordan). When land developer Sam Marris (Martin Mull) sets his sights on Snowy Peaks, Marris makes a deal with Ski School instructor Lance Finkmayer (Corby Timbrook) to sabotage Snowy Peaks safety requirements so the current lease holder, Pops (Ray Walston),will lose his claim and allow Marris to turn Snowy Peaks into resort town Marristown.
Ski Patrol comes to us from producer Paul Maslansky best known for his creation and curation of the Police Academy series. With grosses dipping with subsequent installments, Maslansky tried to revisit the formula and applying it to the world of skiing. Maslansky initially intended to expand Ski Patrol, much like Police Academy, with two sequels and a spin-off TV series, but when the movie only made $8 million that never came to be though supposedly there's been some talk of a Ski Patrol sequel/reboot with the team behind Workaholics. Ski Patrol isn't offensive or obnoxious, but it's yet another rehash on an overplayed formula that has long since worn out its welcome.
I will say that some of the cast do bring energy to their performances with T. K. Carter, Paul Feig, and Leslie Jordan bringing some decent smile worthy moments every so often, but aside from a decent long payoff joke involving Leslie Jordan's character taking "growth pills" there's a number of floundering gags such as Jordan repeatedly tripping over a dog named Dumpster (to whom he's also allergic) or a grating performance by Sean Sullivan as a character named Suicide whose schtick is he's part of a band where every member is him and two masks named Buried and Slaughter who he voices and lead to long drawn out ski sequences that aren't all that funny because they don't really have jokes and feel like visual noice that's been put in as a placeholder.
Ski Patrol takes the Police Academy formula and goes through all the expected motions you've seen since the first Police Academy movie and its sequels and rip-off in Moving Violations. It's hard to even muster up much feeling for this movie because it's not obnoxious or offensive enough to elicit any kind of visceral reaction and just feels like a tired entry in an equally tired formula.
Only if we all f*ck up real bad will they ever make a Ski Patrol II, or III
Who even watches a Ski movie anyway? Why make one, are you trying to sell me a time-share in Breckenridge or Aspen? It's like a PG movie, as in zero cussing and zero nudity. What is the f*cking point of skiing related comedy at a PG rating? What could possibly be the pay off? The many fans of this movie are lucky lucky people, they have f*cking Ski Patrol to enrich their lives. Is George Lopez in this movie? Yeah, I just checked, he is, that's him, you can see him there, he'll f*cking live there forever, living in Ski Patrol. I mean, I'm watching the movie, and I can't help but wonder 'what the f*ck happened Ski Patrol?' just wondering it over and over again almost like a mantra, 'what the f*ck happened Ski Patrol?' Did you mean for this movie to be Ski Patrol?