Archival film makes `Descent' more than decent.

Byline: Lewis Taylor The Register-Guard

Before the opening credits even roll, "First Descent" has all the tell-tale signs of a bad action sports film. There's the headache-inducing-trailer with the ominous narration, and the totally extreme overuse of words such as "revolution" "global event" and "cultural phenomenon."

Then there's the product placement, which extends beyond the film and almost makes it into the title. You've got to wonder about any movie produced by a company called Mountain Dew Films, especially one billed as a documentary.

Plus, there's the added curse of the film's association with a big budget studio. Hollywood rarely does justice to the subject of radical sports, and as the opening scenes unfold, "First Descent" wants to be another "Lords of Dogtown" or "Endless Summer II."

The cheesy titles and fake snowboarding sound effects don't help, and in the glacially slow first five minutes of the film, the producers succeed at doing the impossible - making snowboarding on the big screen boring.

But just as "First Descent" looks to going into a downhill slide, the film starts to take shape and the filmmakers' motives become clearer. Oddly, it is not the slick new sequences, but the archival footage from snowboarding's past that puts "First Descent" back on track.

The team of Kevin Harrison and Kemp Curley, who cut their teeth filming ESPN's X Games and producing shows for MTV Sports, aim to do nothing less than recount the history of snowboarding, while also examining the present and future of the sport.

It's an ambitious goal, and it's the reason the film sometimes loses its focus. But Harrison and Curley clearly are using broad brush strokes to paint a picture that hasn't yet been painted by a mainstream film.

To tell their story, the pair follow five snowboarders from different generations into the backcountry of Alaska. Assembled are early pioneers Shawn Farmer and Nick Perata; the young talent, Shaun White and Hannah Teter; and the ageless Terje Haakonsen, the Norwegian Michael Jordan of the sport.

Harrison and Curley stitch new action footage together with old video clips and more recent interviews with the pioneers of the sport. The effect is a montage of grainy videos, colorful characters and slick sequences that will look familiar to fans of filmmaker Stacy Peralta.

Peralta, the Ken Burns of action sports documentaries, pioneered the technique of blending archival footage with modern day commentary in his skateboarding film, "Dog Town and Z-Boys," and his big wave surfing movie, "Riding Giants." If Harrison and Curley are slightly less successful, it may be because they focus too heavily on the modern day and not enough on the historical.

That is also the reason "First Descent" gets off to a slow start.

As the film opens, the question of why these five riders are headed to a remote lodge in Alaska is unclear. The trip seems overly contrived - a filmmaker's trick to get a handful of big names together in one place and the kind of stunt you might see on a reality TV show.

As the movie wears on, though, it proves to be an effective narrative device that reinforces just how far snowboarding has evolved. White and Teter learn about big mountain riding from the veterans, and Farmer, Perata and Haakonsen are invigorated by the energy of the young riders.

In one sequence, the team builds a monster launch ramp while waiting for a storm to clear. White, who has been playing the part of the backcountry rookie, suddenly returns to being the X Games star as he spins 720 degrees off the massive kicker.

Meanwhile, Farmer, the grizzled 40-year-old veteran, shows fear for the first time as he is forced to confront the jump, his mortality and the reality of the sport he helped pioneer.

By focusing on the personalities of the five featured riders, the film has a human element that's lacking from most snowboarding films, which often paint the stars as superheroes of the sport. Before revealing Shaun White as the 18-year-old action sports phenom that he is, the film shows him as a young rider with his own fears about confronting some very big mountains.

"I'll be honest," White says after his first run. "I had a little bit of a shake going there."

Despite the high altitude action footage - including one heart-stopping avalanche sequence - the tone of "First Descent" is more mesmerizing than adrenaline-pumping. This is a good thing, since the high amplitude angle of snowboarding has been well documented.

And as with Peralta's movies, you don't have to be a fan of snowboarding to enjoy "First Descent." But it certainly helps if you are.

The producers apparently found more old video than they ever dreamed of. It's too bad they didn't share more of it.

The rescued footage includes clips of backyard snowboarders from the 1960s riding "snurfers" and snowboarding pioneers such Jake Burton and Tom Simms surfing their early prototype boards in the 1970s. In one sequence looking back on snowboarding's bad boy reputation, a scared skier from the 1980s explains why she didn't want to get on the chairlift with a trio of snowboarders.

"We thought they might have guns," she says.

Along with the conflict between snowboarders and skiers, "First Descent" also delves into the punk image of early snowboarders, the huge influence of the X Games, the rise of Olympic snowboarders, the decline of snowboard racing, the roots of the snowboarding scene in Europe and the modern day Japanese mania for snowboarding.

It's a lot to cover in one film, and it's the reason "First Descent" feels a bit discombobulated. Is this a film about the history of snowboarding or about the future of the sport?

At times, the filmmakers don't seem to know the answer. That doesn't make the movie any less entertaining, just a little bit harder to follow.

There are plenty of rough transitions, loose ends and non sequiturs, but for a sport with rebellious roots and a chaotic upbringing, a little sloppiness seems appropriate.

Reach Lewis Taylor at 338-2512 or [e-mail].

MOVIE REVIEW

First Descent

Rated: PG-13 for brief strong language and a momentary drug reference

Theater: Cinemark