Warren Miller's Cold Fusion - The Power of Snow

Warren Miller has been a film maker for over 50 years, and his passion for presenting extreme sports to the masses remains as strong as ever. Cold Fusion is his latest effort; a combination of extreme skiing, aerial skiing and BASE jumping.

Harvey's rights ski was inexplicably caught up in his wrist watch.

Travelling the world and filming the best in their respective fields makes this a very comprehensive and diversified montage. Filmed in such places as the US, Iran, Kenya (yes, really), Canada, Switzerland and various other snowfields, Miller lets the action do most of the talking, placing the camera in some unlikely positions to capture some of the most amazing footage ever seen.

Accompanying this footage is a wide variety of music from the likes of Nelly Furtado, Dave Matthews, Johnny Cash, Frank Black and Foo Fighters. Like the action on screen, it is mostly fast and furious, sometimes a little too fast and furious in that it tends to detract from what is on screen. There are also short interviews with many of the world’s best skiers (and some of the craziest).

What goes up, must come down.

Cold Fusion pays homage to the past, and is as much about exploring the skiing culture as it is about the extremism. Those who enjoy watching others risking head and skin will get a buzz out of the action and those who prefer to see people making fools of themselves or just plain getting smashed on the slopes in major wipeouts are also catered for, though not to the same degree.

See?

Unusually, this is a full frame presentation so naturally it's not 16:9 enhanced. The image is faultless and is as sharp and clear as you could wish for. Colours are strong, solid and bold, whites - of which there are plenty - are nicely contrasted and balanced, and the few black levels are solid, Shadow detail is irrelevant, grain is non-existent, there is no shimmer, no noise, and only a mark or two that stand out due the overall quality of the presentation.

The feature is presented with a solid and encompassing Dolby Digital 5.1 mix that is in constant demand due to the complete and ceaseless soundtrack. The narration from Miller and the interviews are placed at the front of the sound stage and are generally quite audible, only occasionally drowned out by the loud soundtrack, and although the surrounds are used extensively for the music, they pipe up for little else. The subwoofer is also kept very busy.

The first extra is a featurette looking at the filming of the Iran segment called Destination Iran and, at less than ten minutes, it's really just extra footage.

The same can be said of Behind the Scenes (BASE Jump Europe) apart from being about five minutes longer. Both offer a little more input from the crew than the feature.

Lastly there are two trailers, for Storm and Fifty, that are three and four minutes long respectively and are quite charged and action-packed as far as features go.

Extreme athletes such as skiers and BASE jumpers are either fearless or completely insane – I’m pumping for the latter. Cold Fusion gets a viewer as up close and personal as most of us will ever be, or will ever want to be. With 50 years of film making under his belt and still active at a sprightly 72 years of age, this is unlikely to be Miller's last offering.