| Original Score: 2/4 | Nov 24, 2011

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Dec 6, 2005

| Original Score: 2/4 | Dec 6, 2005

| Original Score: C+ | Dec 6, 2005

First Descent comes off as an overlong, overstuffed promo for an 'industry' that hasn't needed promoting since the movie's target audience was in diapers.

| Dec 6, 2005

They're amazing athletes.

Full Review | Dec 5, 2005

An adequate if slightly overlong history of the sport, Descent adheres to the same storytelling trajectory as documentary predecessors on surfing and skateboarding.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Dec 2, 2005

It doesn't get gnarlier than this.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 2, 2005

At almost two hours, First Descent still moves along briskly, offering something for everyone, including the skeptical crowd that still thinks all snowboarders smoke pot and listen to Black Flag.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 2, 2005

An overlong and surprisingly dull documentary about snowboarding.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4 | Dec 2, 2005

Adrenaline rules, dude. If only the movie would give the audience more of it.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Dec 2, 2005

What should have been a thrilling 90-minute sport adventure runs on for 20 more repetitive minutes. First Descent is exciting, but less would surely have been more.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 2, 2005

Equal parts historical retrospective and ESPN-style thrill ride.

Full Review | Dec 2, 2005

There's probably a good snowboarding movie coming some day. This isn't it.

| Original Score: D | Dec 2, 2005

A sports documentary that occasionally veers toward becoming a lovesick advertisement for a popular sport but winds up celebrating with sweet earnestness the headstrong individual and his or her community of likeminded renegades.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Dec 2, 2005

This is good fun and exciting material hosted by a number of engaging personalities (whose ages range from 17 to 40) who have all achieved the central dream of humankind: making a living on their own terms doing a thing that they love.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 2, 2005

These people are out of their minds.

Full Review | Dec 2, 2005

If this chronicle of snowboarding has no more heft than a fresh coat of powder, it's awfully fun to roll around in.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 1, 2005

Pic displays filmmakers Kevin Harrison's and Kemp Curley's love of snowboarding, but suffers from an unjustifiably long running time, considerable repetition and a generally awkward structure.

Full Review | Dec 1, 2005

Curley and Harrison have created a surprisingly tedious, overblown defense of a sport that, while ushering in the era of "extreme" games, doesn't boast the cinematic potential or charismatic stars of its cousins on the asphalt and aquatic waves.

| Dec 1, 2005