Scene Breakdown: Airborne

As always, let's begin by setting the scene. Pictured above is our protagonist, Mitchell Goosen, and his cousin Wiley. At the beginning of the movie, Mitchell is a laid back surfer dude who lives in California with his parents. We as an audience know this because approximately 90% of Mitchell's lines in the movie discuss surfing, California, and being laid back. (See video below.) His parents win a research grant to study in Australia, and instead of taking their teenage son with them, they ship him off to live with his Aunt and Uncle in Cincinnati which is crazy because THERE IS NO OCEAN IN CINCINNATI AND NOW HOW WILL HE SURF OR SOMETHING. His parents' rationale for not taking him with them is that they don't want to "take him out of school for six months." So, yes, this entire movie is based on the premise that there are apparently no schools Australia.

Also, that's Seth Green again, as Mitchell's dorky cousin Wiley. I don't think any of you realize how many screenshots I have of his hair from this movie. I'll spare you, but... yeesh. Fun fact: Someone in the wardrobe department actually made him look like that. On purpose.

This is Jack, one of the other bullies. Arguably the head one. It's kind of tough to tell, as the movie wants you to think he's the head bully, but at no point do we see him do anything near the level of putting tattoos across the forehead of guys he doesn't like. So I'm still thinking Snake is the boss. Maybe if we knew Jack's GPA.

Jack is also the brother of Nikki, who has started dating Mitchell. Anyone who has seen a movie made between 1986 and 1998 may be shocked to hear this, but Jack does not approve. So the fact that they're on the same team explains why he looks constipated.

Both teams start racing at breakneck speed down Devil's Backbone, pushing and shoving to jockey for position, and dodging oncoming cars. Just so we're clear, this is the most dangerous thing I've ever seen in a movie aimed at teens. Easily. These kids are racing down a mountain on rollerblades into oncoming traffic. I've seen A LOT of kids/teen movies, and I can't think of anything that even comes close. Although they are wearing their pads, so maybe I'm just overreacting. Everyone knows knee pads are 100% effective against a speeding Buick. It's just science.

Speaking of incredibly dangerous, rollerblade-based 1990s entertainment... Skitchin'? Anyone?

This is a shot of Mitchell jumping over a car. There was no ramp involved. He was just rollerblading down the street and jumped over a car with a few feet to spare. When I did my Scene Breakdown of 3 Ninjas, I posited that 14-year-old Rocky's two-handed foul line dunk (while wearing jeans) was "the greatest athletic achievement ever." I feel I should amend that. It was "one of" the greatest athletic achievements ever. I say this because a 75-inch vertical leap while wearing rollerblades has to at least be in the conversation.

This would also be a good opportunity to point something out. There is really no reason for this movie to be titled Airborne. It is about a surfer who also rollerblades and sometimes play street hockey. Save for a brief half-pipe montage, this shot, and one more moment later, no one is ever in the air. There are literally dozens of titles that make more sense than Airborne.

What I'm saying is this -- how in the hell no coked-up executive in 1993 figured out that this movie should have been called Tubular! is completely beyond me.

Anyway, things are getting incredibly serious in the race. How do I know this, you might ask? Simple. There's a wailing guitar solo in the background (around the 3:00 mark of Part 10). Holy sh*t did people in the 90s love wailing guitars. Think of any TV show you want from the 90s that was aimed at teens. Almost all of them featured wailing guitars in the credits, and as they entered or exited every scene. (For example: "Saved by the Bell", and "90210".)

I like to think there was one guy who recorded all the wailing guitars for movies and TV in the 90s, and now he just sits around telling his grandkids about how he was the king ("THE KING!") of the background guitar solo, and swearing at the TV whenever he sees what he thinks would have been a good spot for one of his tasty riffs. Poor guy.

Mitchell realizes he's out of place on some parking deck, and needs to get down to ground level to finish the race. So, he jumps over another car (lots of property damage in this scene) and skates down a conveniently tilted flatbed truck. This would be more impressive if not for two things:

1) He wouldn't have even had to do it if he hadn't gotten lost like a sh*thead.
2) Snake already won the race. Quit being a showoff.

Whatever. Now we're coming down the home stretch with Mitchell and the two remaining bullies.

Mitchell goes over to help Jack up and the two of them cross the finish line together, giving them the three finishers required to win. Either because they won, or because Mitchell helped him up, or because he is suffering from some sort of serious brain injury from the fall he just took, Jack is now friends with Mitchell, too. Aww, isn't that nice.

Except of course for the fact that like 20 people started this exceedingly dangerous competition, and the only people who are accounted for are Mitchell, Jack, Snake, Seth Green, the two prep school douches who finished, the bully in the water, and one other prep school kid. That's not even half! Cincinnati could be littered with dead teenage rollerbladers, and these guys are all "YAY! YIPPEE! Let's hug and kiss and high-five and get sodas!" You know what they call people like this, who only care about their own personal needs and desires, without concern for the effects of their behavior on others? Sociopaths.

Then again, given that tattoo thing that Snake does to people's foreheads, I guess we shouldn't be shocked.