A video by Vinny Minton and Ivan Narez. Be it a movie about skaters, pillows, giraffes, ice creams or porn, it needs an intro. Usually everything needs to be introduced in order to draw the curtains. In fact – if you choose to spend your money on this DVD, the chances that you will check out this intro are pretty good as well. This introduction actually lifted my mood a bit and especially the acapella R’n’B sends out some good vibes. First off we get some shots of the nightlife – posing gangsters, car jams and bitch fights slide over the screen, followed up by a few nasty bails and finally some smooth tricks from different skaters. It’s hard to underline any especially delightful tricks in this section but Willie Trebach’s FS full torque up the kink, Winston Wardwell’s AO soul 360 AO soul and at last the 450 KG on the acid rail by Trevor Tylovsky were indeed sweet. The intro however is somewhat over-edited in the last part, which kind of confused me to some point, making me think more about all the boxes and color changes, rather than which tricks were actually being laced.

A review by Casper Mejlholm

Trevor Tylovsky sets off the next section which is split up in three parts, also featuring Willie Trebach and Jeph Howard. That little kid lands hurricane on hurricane and shows some damn good potential in becoming a pro in a year or two. Next up is Willie Trebach which is a name I never really came across before. A really smooth style defines his skating though and you have to give him credit for making 20-stair gaps look good with no speed. Finally we get to Mr. Howard and if you’ve seen the b.unique productions you can’t question his skill. Like Willie T, he laces some sweet acid switchups but sometimes I’m just not down with his style, the baby blue sweatpants and the pink XXXL tees – but it’s cool that he has his own style, it just doesn’t appeal to me. All in all this whole part of youngsters is pretty good and has a nice level of skating and just like in the intro, the music in this part is also very laid back with guitar based beats and rap.

Next up we have the NY part, featuring 3 different b.unique skaters. Austin Paz comes out first with a few tricks but especially Billy O’Neill stands out in this section, murdering everything with his sweet style. Franco Cammayo has the most tricks in this part and I don’t believe I’ve ever seen anyone being so close to eating shit as him, when he does the sweaty 540 gap first try. That was so insane. However the song in this section, which consists of a 10 second loop of a beat, gets pretty annoying after a minute or so.

After a small montage section with different skaters and a lot of tricks from Sean Keane, which are also featured in some of the edits of him on the internet, we are set for the triple profile of Gonzo, Ivan Narez and Corey Waikiki. The last mentioned youngster, Corey Waikiki, sets it off with an average mini-view. No doubt about the kids’ skills but he needs to loosen up a bit. Gonzo is probably a name you’ve heard and a skater you’ve seen before in almost every movie you’ve stomped in your DVD. Sadly, it also feels like we’ve seen most of the tricks before – The little cannonball is still ripping everything though, but his skating didn’t surprise me in any way in this section. Last but not least (did I just use that lame quote?) we have Ivan Narez. I like the way he laces a large part of his tricks – especially this 270 bs backslide to sweatstance, listening to the words of wisdom from an old street bum. All in all this is an average section. The instrumental drum’n’bass really did catch me neither but that’s probably just me.

Another triple split section appears, and this time it’s Nick Uhas’ turn to trigger the starting gun. Like many of the other of mentioned skaters in this video, he laces some hard tricks but in spite of this he still has a bit lack of style. Winston Wardwell is indeed the highlight of this section. His inspin fullcab fish, ao fish on the acid rail and the regular + switch hurricane sweatstance were really dope. Quinn Feldman finishes the part off also with another average section. The shaky camera effect in a few tricks really didn’t slam through but the kid laces some all right tricks. The thing I think destroys this part the most is the horrible song. I seriously don’t hope that this rock number was approved by any of the editors but was instead somehow smuggled into the editing device by the bad sound fairy. That really wasn’t a good pick guys.

The next section up is the second montage starting with a stylish fishbrain from oldschooler Ranier Pyramide. Julian Bah laces the smoothest fs torque and I wonder if he sometimes falls asleep during the torques because he looks so damn laid back. Ben Schwab also does probably the most clean ts teakettle I’ve ever seen. Rachard Johnson, Demetrious George, Vinny Minton represents with the usual sweet style in this montage as well, which is very good all in all. The pick of the national ghetto anthem song doesn’t hype you up at all but it doesn’t completely destroy the section either so it’s all good.

Vinny Minton sets the off his profile with a huge 180 and his part is also one of the highlights in this video. You are all aware of what he is capable of lacing, and his style is still oh so sweet. We get to see the Emo Vinny as well in a few seconds and it actually doesn’t look as bad as it sounds, so be aware. The second part of the split profile is Jon Morcigilio which most of all reminded me of Julian Bah a couple of years ago. He laces some sweet tricks amongst these the fullcab ts tp pornstar and he might be someone you want to watch out for in the next years. Again I have to disagree with the choice of song. In the beginning the slamming beat was so dope to set off Vinny’s part but like in the NY part, the loop of a 10 second beat, gets really annoying after a couple of minutes.

To close the deal, Ivan and Vinny has chosen the Victor Arias profile. Finally we get some good Sage Francis music and I believe this is probably my favorite part of the video. His huge bs royale to gap and the ts miszou fullcab ts miszou set the profile off with a blast and I really enjoy watching Victor skate. He makes most of his tricks look so easy and his 270 bs backslide to fs backslide 270 bs backslide was amazing as well. Technical switchups dominate the part and he almost spins into every trick. His relaxed and careless style might cause some people not to get hyped watching him skate but that’s different for every person I watch the video with.

Finally we get to the credits, the shoutouts and the regular party footage of puking girls, drunken people and more drunken people messing around with each other. It’s a lot of fun to watch some dude skate a flat rail over a swimming pool, actually launching a true bs savannah and ts top soyale until he finally bails.

That’s about it for the video itself. The bonus part includes some very sweet RFCC footage with especially Brian Aragon tearing the whole thing to shreds as usually. There’s also some very nice footage from the Salomon/Xjado Europe tour and Vinny Mintons profile from 1997, which is also to be found in the bonus section, put a smile on my face as well.

All in all did video didn’t really hype me up to go skate. Most of the music didn’t really appeal to me and there was way too much average footage in the video to keep the viewers attention. I would watch the video again if I was chilling with my friends or just hanging out but I don’t believe it would ever watch it with the intension of getting hyped for a session. Feel free to buy this video if you want to kick back and just watch some skating or if you’re one of those people who get every new skate video just out of curiosity, but don’t expect to be impressed by the video itself. The video has its good moments and sick tricks but they are way too rare and this means that you only remember a few of the sweet moments afterwards. There isn’t a red line which connects the sections and I didn’t really feel an urge to go watch it again to get some questions answered. I do know it’s hard to put together a movie with a clean theme for each part with the footage they had available, and I’m not saying that it’s necessary for a skate video to have some greater message, but themes always give the videos a better setting – and this skate video was mostly trick on trick on trick.

I rate Hyphy 2 about average but it really depends on what you expect from a skate video. Now get out of my face, buy the video and disagree with me. If you don’t, then go skate. See you.

Review by Casper Mejlholm

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