Admiral Test

After the untimely passing of Corey Haim, it was rough to watch one of his most celebrated film roles in Snowboard Academy. In many ways, this movie is Corey Haim and Jim Varney’s swan song.

The rest of the cast must have really been at half mass after Corey’s death because two of it’s three leads have bit it. It’s like this movie is cursed -- It even took Brigitte Nielson’s career.

Now we all know this movie is loved worldwide, don’t let that Imdb.com glitch fool you. It should say it’s ranked as the 61st greatest movie of all time, not the 61st worst. That’s just a glitch. Now with that being said, let’s take a look at the Academy Award winning film Snowboard Academy.

The movie starts with a bunch of people flipping around on some snowboards while some gnarly surf music plays. They’re clearly mischievous rebels because they’re flying right past signs that say no snowboarding, plus they cut off some old guys skiing. This one old guy calls them buggers too.

Alright, so the snowboarders start chasing the guy in charge of ski patrol. He’s the evil villain in the movie and his out to ruin all of the snowboarding fun. I should probably note that the guy in charge of ski patrol has boogers coming out of his nose.

So they chase him, knock him down and say a bunch of wicked catchphrases like “Yard Sale”, then they steal and break his equipment. It’s then revealed that one of the snowboarders is Corey Haim aka “The Wizard” and Corey warns the ski patrol guy not to mess with the Wizard.

Meanwhile, Ernest makes his 1st appearance playing an idiot named Rudy and he’s applying for a job in public relations and safety engineer for the ski resort. Ernest…wait…Rudy is wearing earrings and he brings a coloring book resume, a plastic plant and a sombrero for some reason. He also makes this hilarious joke that his girlfriend’s fat and smokes ham. He also thinks a trophy is a snow globe. Despite Ernest not being too smart, the resort’s owner (who’s also Corey’s dad) hires him because he’s one safety code write up away from being shut down. So he turns to Ernest for some reason.

Alright, I know we just started this review, but I want make it clear that this text summary/review does not do this movie justice and you can’t get the full effect unless you go out and buy this movie right now!

Let’s continue.

So, back on the snow trails, they send some more ski patrols guys after the renegade snowboards and they actually do catch two of them. Corey Haim and some other guy escape, though, then the other guy says something in snowboard lingo that translates into his grandma farting dust.

The Ski Patrol sends this guy named “Head Cheese” out to catch Corey Haim because apparently they’re brothers and their dad runs the resort. Corey calls his brother (who has a British accent) as loafer boy. They start talking a lot of surfer slang to each other that I don’t understand, but I mean I really shouldn’t expect to.

As a side note, the writing in this movie is so rich and sophisticated that to fully grasp it, you really should major in linguistics.

So basically Corey Haim’s brother is the general manager of the resort and he’s evil due to his British accent and slightly parted hair. This guy’s in no mood for snowboarding buffoonery, so he takes away their boards.

We’re now introduced to Brigitte Neilson’s character Mimi. You probably remember Brigitte Neilson best for her role as Ivan Drago’s wife in Rocky 4 or for her brief marriage to Sylvester Stallone. She plays a gold digging bitch who’s technically married to Corey’s dad and won’t sign divorce papers until he sells the resort and gives her half of it’s earnings.

Plus, she has real big boobs.

See?

Corey’s dad has a meeting in his office with both of his sons to settle their bickering. He decides to let Corey run a snowboarding section on the resort and he’s giving him two weeks to prove himself. Corey also mentions some stuff about butts.

From there, Corey’s brother conceives a most diabolical plan involving a contest between the snowboarders and the skiers. If the snowboarders lose, there’s absolutely no snowboarding on the resort.

So now we have our plot. Thank God.

At this point in the movie, there’s a bunch of stuff going on with Ernest. He’s putting on skis and crashing into shit, he’s breaking stuff and he’s yodeling over the P.A. (which makes people fall over for some reason). He also falls onto a sign that slides him down several hills before he collides with a tree.

Corey Haim’s snowboarding school is really booming now and he and his friends teach some Asian guy and his friends how to snowboard. Corey’s foreign friends take them through boot camp and warn them to never trust the skiers.

I just noticed that there are a lot of people with accents in the movie. When actors speak in a different accent, that usually means Oscar gold, so the producers of this movie were probably on the right track.

Elsewhere,  Brigette Neilson finds the former head of the ski patrol. Remember that guy with the boogers? Well, apparently he got demoted for not catching Corey Haim. She takes him back to her room and fucks the shit out of him. Or it’s at least implied that she does. So now he’s on her side as she tries to take the resort down.

A bunch of stuff happens for like a half hour that isn’t important and the race is finally on. But that pesky ski patrol guy is waiting to roll a snow ball and knock some snowboarders down.

His nefarious plan proves successful, as it causes the snowboarders to lose their first event. Next up is a freestyle competition. Apparently, the skiers recruited all a team of Olympians off-camera because their team is loaded.

So it’s that one snowboarder guy who talked about his grandma farting against an Olympic skier. They talk some serious shit to each other, but I don’t know what either is saying because I’m not a linguistics major. The Olympian goes off some ramp and does some flips, earning him real good scores. Now the retarded snowboarder guy is ready to go. But wait a minute…

That son of a bitch ski patrol guy is pressing buttons somewhere.

This can’t be good. Just as he tries to do his thing, some mist gets sprayed in the retarded guy’s face. Things sure aren’t looking good for the snowboarders as there’s no way he can recover to win this round.

But wait! He starts doing a bunch of crazy, spastic flips and gets perfect 10s. The snowboarders win this event!

The last event is going to be a race between Corey and his evil brother. In preparation, the ski patrol guy saws a tree down. We also see Brigitte Nielson planting dynamite for some reason.

Wait, why do they want the snowboarders to lose so bad? I mean, the insurance salesman is right there. Why don’t they like blow up his car or something so he’ll close down the resort? I guess that’s why I’m not a filmmaker because I don’t get stuff.

Brigitte Neilson just throws some dynamite and the two brothers go right past it, but Ernest comes by on snowboard and they both fall. He also hits the dynamite and it flies into the air and he catches it. So he throws it and it totally lands and blows up next to that pesky ski patrol guy and falls down some hills.

Now Brigitte Neilson isn’t done yet, that bitch is making snowballs.

She starts throwing that junk at the girl working in pro shop. That’ll show them. Luckily, some insignificant female character comes in and starts throwing snowballs back at Brigitte. Then these bitches start sword fighting with golf putters or some shit. Things become physical and an all-out cat fight ensues.

The insignificant female character knocks Brigitte out and she goes to jail.

Seeing all this craziness, the insurance salesman doesn’t shut down  the resort because he sees Brigitte with the dynamite. The brothers also settle their differences, the skiers vs. snowboarders race attracts all new customers and Ernest is a hero.

The movie ends with a celebration and Ernest winks at the camera showing he’s hip to the game and that he knows it’s all been a movie.

Snowboard Academy went on to sweep the 1996 Academy Awards. Corey Haim took home Best Actor in a Leading Role honors while Ernest got the nod for Supporting Actor. The movie also won in the categories of Best Picture, Best Directing, Best Editing, Best Special Effects, Best Foreign Film, Best Short Film and Best Animated Film.

This movie was clearly a career defining film for both Jim Varney and Corey Haim and they were taken from us too soon.

Snowboard Academy 2 can never exists anywhere now but our hearts and minds.

10/10

-Corey

Check out the trailer below.

Posted in: