CLIFFHANGER

A mid-air heist lead by Eric Qualen (John Lithgow) goes wrong as they lose three cases full of money in different locations in the mountains and now they're stranded on the Rocky Mountains. Mountain climber Gabe Walker (Stallone)  finds the crew along with a friend named Hal (Michael Rooker) who now hates him for not saving his girlfriend during their last expedition together, are now forced to find the missing cases on the mountain. Stallone escapes the crew, and teams up with his lover Jessie (Janine Turner) to try save their friend and make sure Qualen and his gang don't get ahold of the cases. It does sound like a fun and interesting adventure film...well it isn't.

Let's start with Stallone. Stallone's acting in this film is not enjoyable, fun or interesting, he's boring and one sided. For crying out loud, he may not be a great actor but he was great as Rocky and Rambo. While the sequels don't match up to the greatness of the those films, he at least was fun and entertaining. Stallone is not only boring but he looks bored too and doesn't seem to try. It's almost as if he's relying on the special effects and kickass moments that he does to make it interesting for him. By the way, his bad memory of trying to save a person is only played out as an excuse to give Stallone's character a tragic background which is done very poorly here. He doesn't even put any emotion to it! Again, Rocky and Rambo, what great emotion he put into those characters, why can't he do it here?  Anyway, for those of you out there expecting explosions or shoot outs from Stallone, this is a film where Stallone has to use his survival and climbing skills. Not a bad idea since we've seen him use his survival skills in "First Blood" but the problem is it's done in a very uninteresting way and yes half of it doesn't look realistic, it looks pretty much Stallonenized to keep the audiences entertained which sadly isn't entertaining either.

 

Stallone is boring and sadly so is the cast and characters. Janine Turner as Stallone's love interest, the two have no chemistry at all nor is there an interesting relationship between them. Janine Turner is not only boring but her character is pretty much just there. She doesn't fight, she doesn't do anything productive and she doesn't even have a love scene with Stallone! Man is she forgettable. Michael Rooker as Hal, is so annoying and so bland that I wouldn't mind if he died, to be honest I wish it was him that died in the beginning, not his badly acted lover. John Lithgow as the villain who I was hoping would be entertaining gives the same disinterested performance as Stallone is. Oh and his English accent is so bad that it's NOT even laughable. The only actors I sort of like is Leon Robinson as one of the henchman and Rex Linn as the double agent working for Lithgow but they don't save the film but they're so good at playing their villain that one of them should have been the main villain. I will also admit that their demise is really cool. There are also these two annoying guys who are just in the film to be well ANNOYING!

As I said before, the survival skills and action are both boring but I do admire the stunt work and shots of them climbing the mountains. With that said it still doesn't do or save much for me. The dialogue in the film is so cliche and corny that not only do they feel forced to say it but Stallone even acknowledges it in the film (Which I bet wasn't in the script). The film has no atmosphere, memorable scenes or an interesting score, it's all just bland. Ok, ok the opening and some of the deaths were cool but they don't hold up as much as you think. I should also tell you that half of it is predictable. Examples, I knew that woman was going to die in the beginning; I knew there was going to be a problem with a rocky old bridge; I knew some of the characters weren't going to die, yeah it gets very predictable. There's finally some dumb moments in the film and one of them that I can think of as I'm writing this is the moment where Stallone leaves one of the cases with a snowman behind it...what the hell?

It looked like it was going to be a fun film but it was boring, stupid, anti climatic and forgettable. This film pretty much looks like a Bond film without the enjoyment, fun, class and atmosphere.

RATING 1/5