After his partner is injured, Zack Conroy (Matt Lanter) is looking for a new partner for the Olympics.
He may have found a new partner in hockey player Alexandra Delgado (Francia Raisa).
Will they overcome their differences to win the gold?
The second movie was so dull - it felt like a bland retread of the original. This movie feels like a reaction to that.
For one, this film flips the dynamic - the prima donna is the male dancer and the working-class hockey player is a woman.
I was worried that the movie was going to be a carbon copy of the original movie, but Alex is completely different from Doug Dorsey. Different here meaning a character who you want to root for as an athlete and the lead of a romcom.
As Alex, Francia Raisa is a breath of fresh air. It is a low bar, but Delgado is the most likable protagonist we have had in this ‘franchise’, and a lot of credit has to go to Raisa for giving this movie a character with some sense of interior life.
Matt Lanter is a bit colourless in the lead role - this might have something to do with the character being a little hard to pull out. He seems to be a little aloof, but the movie does not go the lengths of the first movie in defining his flaws. One of my favourite aspects of the original The Cutting Edge is how much effort the film puts into making Kate (Moira Kelly) an over-privileged shithead. By contrast, Zack is too nice.
The movie is weird in its POV - Lanter is the focus and initiates the plot but I had trouble tracking his arc. Alex’s subplot does not get much screen-time but she feels like more of an anchor for the story. The film gives her a backstory that she trained as a skater as a child but was unable to continue. This gives her a bit more agency in deciding to switch disciplines, and that story has a clear arc. It is just a pity that the movie focuses on Zack.
It is no hidden masterpiece, but Cutting Edge 3 is a steep upswing from its predecessor.
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