Action sports are great, literally death-defying stunts even more so!
I've been a lifelong fan of this stuff, so I was hooked right away when Nitro Circus came on the air in the mid 2000s. It was like a more extreme stunt-based version of Jackass made by crazy professionals with unbelievable levels of skill in their field (well at least some of them).
The movie version despite some fun set pieces that gave me vertigo, was a letdown. It just feels like two or three episodes of the show built around advertising their live show, held together by a barrage of talking heads. Hey, it's cool you get to hang out with Channing Tatum and I'm sorry you had to hang out with Rob Dyrdek but as a viewer this is not interesting to watch and it doesn't connect at all to the spectacle.
There's this constant focus of how noone believed in their live show and that it couldn't be done, but now they're going to change the world and it's so inspiring blabla. Sorry guys, I'm sure the show is fantastic but there have been stunt shows for decades, air shows with a much higher risk factor starting way back in the early 20th century and even in the action sports world you had the extremely successful (and oddly similar) Boom Boom Huck Jam before that.
All this doesn't kill the movie, it's a nuisance. What ultimately drags it down is the lack of structure, rhythm and creativity. It meanders aimlessly from stunt to stunt and there's too much downtime between them. So much footage of our ragtag team of daredevils just standing there like badly programmed NPCs in an elder scrolls game. The stunts are impressive as ever but nothing you wouldn't see in any random episode of the show and there are too few of them to hold the movie together. There's no noticeable escalation of their ideas that would necessitate the existence of a feature film. Also I always find it really comical when someone tries to be badass, hardcore and ooh so metal and then all curse words are bleeped. I never got America's obsession with that. I understand that you don't want Bambi dropping f-bombs and quoting NWA lyrics but I think a teen can survive it.
One more point, which admittedly comes down to personal taste but I find it important to mention:
The Nitro Circus team is highly entertaining when they are doing stunts and completely uninteresting and borderline unlikeable outside of that. The greatest strength of the Jackass members was how distinct and relateable they were. They seemed like a big, weird dysfunctional family. Through their bond you could vicariously live their misadventures like you're hanging out with old friends you rightfully ditched long ago for constantly talking you into doing something stupid.
With Nitro Circus they all seem like self-centered dudebros (and one oddly invisible dudette-sis) who love themselves. To be honest I have real trouble telling them apart or noticing any real bonds between them that I could relate to.
This was watchable, but I recommend just skipping everything but the stunts.
