We begin to descend into the darkness today dear friends. Today the pain of my kingdom was inflicted upon me in a whole new way.

My half-assed research leaves me unable to prove it, but if I had to make a bet, I’d wager that AIRBORNE was greatly funded by Rollerblade. I make the presumption because of how major a role the sport of rollerblading plays in this film, and the fact that damned near every shot of the activity features a character brandishing the “Rollerblade” logo on a piece of equipment. Even hockey sticks! My friends I have never in my life seen a Rollerblade brand hockey stick – and I’m Canadian.

You might be asking yourself “Does it matter? Product placement happens in films all the time.’ That is true dear reader, but there’s a world of difference between feature film that uses product placement to score some cash, and a film that is made to be one long commercial for a product (Watched THE WIZARD lately?). When all the filmmakers are concerned with are selling a product, nothing else will matter – not acting, not direction, and certainly not script.

The script negligence gets proven early on, as the “Saved By the Bell” reject who is the lead character in this film moves from sunny California to wintry Ohio. Once there, it doesn’t take much to send him on a badly written poetic ode to the sport of surfing…three times…inside of the first 45 minutes! Was Rollerblade selling surfboards in 1993 as well??

I kno one thing for sure: They weren’t making hockey jerseys. During the one scene of ice hockey where two schools are competing and our poetic surfer is suited up and pulled on to the ice…they give him every piece of equipment he’d need…except a jersey. For the uninitiated, even during a game of pick-up hockey with your buddies – nobody plays without a jersey. Even if somehow you do, you sure as shit don’t shoot on your own net.

This isn’t like football where it’s easy to get caught up in confusion and forget which direction your team is headed downfield. At the other end of the ice is a guy from your team defending the goal, wearing the same jersey as you (if you decided to wear one). Nobody looks at that guy and thinks to themself “Get it past my own guy and I’m the hero!”. An idiotic character moment inspired by idiotic writing.

So as if I haven’t convinced you of how terrible this Rollerblade commercial was, allow me to present to you, the jury, exhibit M…as in “made to order”. The dvd release of AIRBORNE is part of the Warner Brothers Archive Collection. This is a series of titles WB owns the rights to, but doesn’t think would sell well enough to run a pressing of copies. So if you want one of these cherries, Warner doesn’t even press the dvd until the order goes through!!!

And yet a copy was purchased, pressed, and now lives in my home.

Seriously gang – no amount of “Watch it again” goading is worth this sort of punishment.