The Art of Flight
The Art of Flight
PG-13 | 08 September 2011 (USA)
The Art of Flight Trailers

Iconic snowboarder Travis Rice and friends redefine what is possible in the mountains. Experience the highs, as new tricks are landed and new zones opened, alongside the lows, where avalanches, accidents, and wrong-turns strike.

Reviews
RyothChatty ridiculous rating
FrogGlace In other words,this film is a surreal ride.
Ava-Grace Willis Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.
Brooklynn There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.
t-c-pearce This gets two stars for some awesome snowboard HD footage to show whats possible at the limits of HD and snowboarding technically and good choice of music.Other than that its like jackass meets snowboarding without the comedy as rich white US trustafarians with lifelong trusts from mom and dad get to travel the world without a brain with the most awesome RED camera. The wrong type of comedy comes when we are shown how they delight in smashing up trees with their snowboard, blowing up propane containers, shooting up stuff in Alaska with high powered weapons for fun and thrills.
sugarmack Without a doubt, everything said about the cinematography is true- beautiful, incredible pictures abound. The snowboarding has you gasping and maybe even feeling sick in your stomach in the good way! But unfortunately for us, the characters speak and spill out every cliché on the planet "it's not the destination, it's the journey", "respect the mountain. When you don't respect the mountain that's when bad things happen" (paraphrase).That would be all fine except that the 'storyline' sees us following these guys to remote places and generally finding too little snow. (Maybe because they're flying everywhere in helicopters, blowing up propane tanks, shooting and destroying trees and setting fires. Ever heard of climate change?) I thought snowboarders would be a little more 'down to earth' and want to protect what they spend their life on.Twice in the film the guys look at discouraging weather/conditions reports but say "but you can't just trust the data. You've gotta get out there and see for yourself." But then they're shocked when they find exactly what the data predicted and have to call their trips short.The snowboarding action is beautiful...but little else to recommend it. Luckily there's a lot of action.
jdabbott51-318-439916 No disrespect to the photographers or makers of this film. And its for them I give any stars at all. The scenery and the shots were top-notch if not some of the best ever. But like every ski/snowboard movie ever made there is always some attempt at trying to find substance. The most recent Warren Miller movies have really tackled the search for substance quite profoundly with worldly travels and meaningful encounters with other cultures.Art of Flight fails on its attempt at substance greatly. The first endeavor starts in Alaska. The snowboarding is awesome, the talent is definitely there . . . but then they take us to an off moment where they show what the snowboarders do when they're not snowboarding. Suddenly we're transported to the Palin ranch where a snowboarder is firing a shot gun to decapitate a tree, blowing up a propane tank and then starting the mother of all bonfires.They then go to Chile, pay marginal lip service to the earthquake victims of Chile . . . but the presence of anyone actually Chilenean is minimal.They then go to the Patagonia, and the only Argentine we see is a crazed old man making oddball "there's a devil in that thar canyon!" like comments. All in all, these snowboarders are awesome at their craft, but they're young and cocky. It doesn't feel as if there's any respect for the landscapes they encounter, but rather its just some cocky rock stardom attitude at "having been there done that and watch me break dance on the top of this mesa" type attitude. Also, while snow mobiles might be fun, I was so NOT entertained during the whole snow mobile portion. Snowmobiles are fun as hell to ride, but boring as hell to watch. Again, for a sport that utilizes nature greatly, it's amazing how much resources and oil was burned in the making of this film. The name "Art of Flight" seems like such a transcendental and fun name for a snowboard film, yet most flying occurred in a helicopter. This film may appeal to anyone 18 or under, but for anyone 25 and up you'll love the views but probably find the snowboarders to be daft and dumb as I did. Stick to the latest Warren Miller movies with Johnny Mosely offering a well written and excellently delivered narratives instead.
glypo Video & Audio QualityA bit geeky but here goes. Blu-Ray video was averaging around 20 Mbps (peaking 35 Mbps) and audio was averaging around 5.5 Mbps (peaking 7.5 Mbps). To give some comparison a typical Hollywood DVD has video and audio totalling around 4.5 Mbps – yes you read that right, just the audio alone on this Blu-Ray has a higher bit rate than the video and audio of a DVD combined. I invested pretty heavily in good home setup and this Blu-Ray took advantage, the 1080p AVC video and Dolby TrueHD audio are stunning. The iTunes version is 2.7 GB (highly compressed) the Blu-Ray works out at 16 GB approx. As a result you are getting 6X more detail here. 10/10Film ContentWith the money pumped into this production it was clear it wouldn't be an amateur hour affair. Things kick off in Alaska for some pretty mental runs before moving south to the Andes in Chile with some pretty intimidating rocky terrain, moving further south to Patagonia before moving up north again for a second winter in BC. There is a lot of filler between the action videos. This filler is typically narration mixed with some arty, almost pretentious, video work. Those that don't appreciate this might want less narrative and more action, I found the balance good. On the subject of video, if there are two signature video shots from this film it would be wide-angle slow-motion pointing into the sun – great action, and time lapse of the moving night sky – great filler. 8/10MusicThe main trailer has an amazing tune which is collaboration between M83 and Brain Farm Cinema, sadly it's not used in the film! There is some other electronic, including some tracks off M83's forthcoming album. Some post-rock from Sigur Ros and even a little light rock. Perhaps my expectations were too high after the trailer but it didn't fit as well as I'd hoped. Certainly not bad though. 7/10RatingI am clearly no film critic, but in terms of production values this is the best snowboarding film I have seen. The action is great too, it's 1hr 20 of great snowboarding and impressive cinematography. It's not everything I had hoped for, but so close. My favourite snowboarding film to date. 8/10.