Maidexpl Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

Robert Joyner The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Teddie Blake The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Frances Chung Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Horst in Translation ([email protected]) This is maybe the statement which describes Swiss ski jumper Walter Steiner the best. Back in the 1970s, he had to start lower than his competition and yet he won easily most of the time. Had he started where they did, it would have been too dangerous as he may have had jumps of around 180 meters. And despite this massive talent, Steiner still had to work as a carpenter, so he would have enough money. If you know a bit about ski jumping (and -flying today), you will understand better about the perspectives. They improved the material so much in the last decades that the current world record stands at over 250 meters. I heard in another documentary that Herzog was ambitious to become a ski jumper himself, but then picked the profession of filmmaker after a serious ski jumping accident by a friend of his. Well, without that friend's crash, we may not have Herzog's excellent contributions to the world of movies today, so all's good I guess.Here, he tries to examine the mind and psychology of somebody who risks his health, maybe his life, so many times. There is certainly a reference about being free as a bird. The competition of ski jumping on the biggest hills is called flying for a reason. The film runs for 44 minutes and Herzog was in his early 30s when this was made. Steiner was in his early 20s. Steiner also got a small cameo in another Herzog film from the same year. It's also funny to see how the athletes had to prepare the skis themselves. Unthinkable today.Maybe this is still the most famous ski jumping documentary, or movie in general, of all time. I thought it was worth a watch for seeing the differences compared to today (I was very interested in it a while ago, but don't watch it today anymore) and because of Herzog's narration which is as strong as ever. The title is slightly pretentious and sometimes he is a bit over the top in terms of drama when he says it is unsure if he will ever jump again and then he jumped the same day, but oh well. I still enjoyed the watch. Recommended.

Red-Barracuda The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner is a very strange sports documentary. Perhaps this comes as no surprise when you consider its director is Werner Herzog, a man who tends to focus on unpredictable aspects in his films. It's about the champion Swiss ski-jumper Walter Steiner, specifically his appearance at a competition in Yugoslavia in 1974, where he easily breaks the world record. The approach that Herzog takes differs from most sports biographies in that it doesn't really profile Steiner in a traditional sense. Other than the fact that he is a woodcarver by trade, we don't learn anything about his personal life or his ascent in his chosen sport. Instead the film uses him to explore a more abstract set of ideas, specifically the idea that ski jumpers experience an almost bliss-like state as they fly through the air. The very obvious danger the sport presents the athletes every time they descend down the slope makes the competitors unusual in that they effectively confront the possibility of death each time they compete. Anyone who doubts this only has to watch the incredible and disturbing shots of skiers crash landing in a most brutal manner. And it struck me towards the end that these guys are not even wearing helmets! Many times we see heads battering off the slope and it really makes you shudder to think how many must've died as a direct consequence of having no protective headgear; this shows the advances in safety measures over the subsequent years.The film is probably best remembered for the incredible slow motion footage of the jumpers captured on special high-speed cameras. Herzog quite successfully captures the otherworldly aspect of this activity by this ultra-slowed down imagery accompanied by the extremely evocative music by Popul Vuh; these moments transcend typical sports documentary footage and do tap into something more mysterious. On a more basic level, there are several times when Steiner openly talks about his fears. Specifically the way the organisers callously encourage extremely dangerous acts by raising the ramp to increasingly high levels. This naturally brings large crowds and media attention – both of whom will no doubt have elements of whom will secretly crave seeing terrible accidents. It really looks into the darker side of why people turn up to watch certain dangerous sporting events. Steiner is so much better than the competition that he genuinely fears the possibility of jumping too far and killing himself on the flat at the bottom. He ends up voluntarily starting further down the ramp to shorten his overall distance. Towards the end of the film he tells a story about his childhood when his only friend was a raven he had nursed back to health. They formed an almost embarrassed friendship culminating with him having to kill the bird in order to save it from repeat savage attacks from its fellow ravens which had that turned against it. It's a story that mirrors Steiner the flier's experience and how alone he must have felt as he travelled at speed towards the bloodthirsty crowd of his own kind for the umpteenth time.

tedg Herzog can dazzle, challenge. He's one of only two German filmmakers I think are worth watching. Yes, that goes all the way back.Even now, his formula of conflating fiction and truth, documentary and stylized narrative, risk and art still works, even when he's mostly just referencing himself. But he can still do some crazy stuff that doesn't work, at least for this viewer.What we have here is a celebration of an athlete. Herzog tries to make him a warrior of life. There's a supposedly poetic metaphor of his pet bird who had to be shot because he couldn't fly, and that was because its peers picked on it. Get it? There's the bit of him being a sculptor of merit, but when this man speaks of his art and what we dissolves that. And gee, he's German, and we hear a long diatribe about bad judges, not because they are bad, but because they are Yugoslav!No, he's the center of attention here simply because he takes risks. His art is in how far he is willing to go beyond safety. I would have liked a film (or even a sculpture) that this jumper did of Herzog. But this way, this thing we have, is a miss of huge proportions. We need Herzog as a risktaker, not as an admirer of one.Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

alice liddell If, like me, you think documentaries are the runt of the cinematic crown, a lazy option, an unimaginative, dreary response to life, a mendaciously arrogant appropriation of 'truth', than this film might make you see other possibilities in the form. Where documentaries are generally concerned with the 'real', what can be seen, evaluated, and understood, Herzog aims for nothing less than a representation of the sublime. And, as so often, he comes very close.Walter Steiner is a typical Herzog hero. He carves wood sculptures from ideas that sound suspiciously Herzogian. He tells fable-like stories about his youth, an example of the subject appropriating the language of an all-interpreting creator (Herzog). He is both artist and storyteller. His great gift, however, is in sport, a milieu of order and repetition seemingly alien to Herzog's epic dreams of convention-busting.Steiner is a ski-jumper. He skis down high slopes, and then just flies over huge distances. He is frequently heard complaining that the slopes are put too high, that he is in danger of jumping too far and killing himself,. This, of course, is why Herzog thinks he is less a mere sportsman, than an exalted attitude to death. He is frequently compared to birds - he is someone who can fly, escape the mundane, transcend the everyday to another spirit level altogether. The very orgasmic brevity of the act makes it all the more precious.In the act of filming, Herzog appropriates this Wagnerian achievement for himself. By ignoring straight narrative, character, and concentrating on the exquisite moment; by bending, reshaping, slowing down time to elongate the sublime; Herzog goes beyond simple observation to enter new realms of experience. Although there are uncomfortable echoes of Leni Riefenstahl's mountain films, the photography in this film is unparalleled in modern cinema, with the dazzling white vast slopes all mere props for the ecstatic revelation of Steiner's art, this melding of two realms, our human, worldly level, and the mystical unknown.This kind of Teutonic postering is not usually to my taste, but there are many pleasing more earthy moments, especially the sight of Herzog, cinema's great visionary scuttling around like a nerdy sports fan with ABC and all the other world media. Now there's a sight I never thought I'd see.