Here at FlixFlops, not only do we present for you the latest and greatest/worst movies to add to your Netflix queue, occasionally we will torture ourselves and sit down to watch one of them.  The first flixflop to receive this honor is Zolar: The Extreme Sports Movie.  So get your blue on and get ready for a ride on the Z train.

The premise of Zolar (The Extreme Sports Movie) is that a group of wannabe extreme sport athletes - teen extreme sport athletes - get lucky and land themselves a coach.  A coach that just happens to be the surrogate father of a blue, skateboarding alien named Zolar.  At first, the group labels Zolar as a freak and doesn’t want anything to do with him, but soon they learn to accept him as part of their team.  Of course, Zolar turns out to be the one of the most powerful beings in the universe, pursued by an intergalactic bad guy who wants to capture Zolar’s power, and the kids must defend Zolar using their newly found sports skills and the most extreme weapon of all: teen attitude. 

We didn’t know quite what to expect going in to Zolar. Our first thought was that it seemed like a more modern, direct to video rip-off of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, and, to put it bluntly, the movie didn’t really do much to change that opinion. Our group of protagonists - we’ll call them the ExtreemTeens - represent the full diversity of American youth. The Scooby Doo formula is employed: there’s the clean-cut leader, a slightly wacky female sidekick (sporting hot pink hair and mascara vivid enough to draw your attention to her eyes were she standing on the side of a pitch-black road outside Tijuana, Mexico), a scruffier nerd type, the leader’s outgoing and vivacious younger sister, and some other kid who leaves the team in the early parts of the movie, yet inexplicably returns at the end to provide material for a sequel. Finally, a few minutes into the movie we get Shaggy and Scooby, in this case Zolar’s “dad” and Zolar himself.

Zolar doesn’t have any family and, understandably, is shunned by society for being a blue, rubbery alien. “Surely,” the producers of this movie must have been thinking, “surely, his social awkwardness will appeal to teens everywhere - but if not, they will be mesmerized by the extreme sports.”

In another homage, or outright ripoff, depending on your perspective, Zolar’s parents were killed when he was just a boy, but he was brought to Earth, where he later in life learned of his tremendous power and importance on the galactic stage. That’s right - Zolar is Superman. We can see the sequel now: “Come, Son of Zol-Ar! Kneel before Zod!”
Ahem.

Anyway, this provides the basis of the later plot of the movie, where Zolar is tricked by bad guys who disguise themselves as Zolar’s long-lost parents. We won’t really go much more into the plot, mainly because there’s not much to go into.  We learn that Zolar isn’t the only alien in them movie.  In fact almost all professional extreme sports athletes are aliens and what we refer to as “Extreme Sports” is really just alien rituals.  We learn this fantastic revelation from Mike Metzger, who despite being a professional Freestyle Motocross rider is not a professional actor.  Yet he is inexplicable give all of the movies plot exposition.  In one short scene we learn about Zolars parents, Zolars power and the evil being hunting Zolar.  Did we mention Zolar is blue? Because the movie mentions it. Over and over and over again. Oh, the puns. So many, many puns.

With a family oriented plot this bad we expected the worst.  But the special effects and makeup were really not half bad - the makeup and prosthetics in particular were extremely good for a straight-to-DVD movie with this one’s apparent budget. We mock Zolar, but if you had young kids (we don’t), you could certainly do worse for entertainment for them. Our intrepid FlixFlops crew even watched the DVD’s “making of Zolar” feature, of which, again, the makeup and alien effects were the most impressive part. Could we have gotten through this movie without Dale’s Pale Ale? Probably, but it would have been painful. But if you’ve got kids, you’ve probably been exposed to much worse schlock than Zolar: the Extreme Sports Movie. Our rating: <something> on the blue meter.

March 23rd, 2008 | alien, family, netflix, sports