I like action films, so I probably should have been a fan, but unlike Schwarzenegger, Stallone has never made anything of note in that genre. None of his action flicks has ever done much for me. I looked forward to Cliffhanger back in since I'd liked Die Hard 2 and I thought perhaps Harlin could finally force Stallone to make a truly positive piece of work.
Unfortunately, that didn't happen. Cliffhanger seemed pretty lame when I saw it theatrically, and time has not been kind to it. The movie appears no worse now than then, but it hasn't improved with age. It's still a weak excuse for an action piece. Despite the presence of a decent cast - with real actors like John Lithgow and Michael Rooker on hand - every character seems bland and forgettable.
Lithgow seems especially poor as the least-intimidating baddie on record. Perhaps it was his use of a very phony British accent, but for whatever reason, I thought Lithgow offered no personality and presence in the role. Rooker looks nicely intense at times, but he seems equally forgettable.
As for Sly himself Stallone is Stallone. The guy appears to have some talent, but he hides it under masses of muscles and prefers to let his pecs do the work. Perversely, I often root for Stallone to appear in a real movie, and while he came close with Copland , he never seems able to overcome his own lunkheadedness.
His portrayal of hero Gabe Walker is so light that it's amazing it stuck to the film. I don't hate Cliffhanger because it's just too bland to inspire strong emotion. I didn't enjoy it but I was bored more than anything else. Even with all the action, none of it seems thrilling or scary or exciting. If there's anything less interesting than a dull action movie, I have yet to find it.
Although the picture displayed some problems, it generally looked pretty good. Sharpness seemed mostly positive. Mild softness crept into the image at times, but those instances were rare and minor. Most of the time, the picture appeared clear and crisp.
The print seemed slightly gritty at times, with periodic instances of speckles and marks, but it generally looked clean. Colors appeared natural and bright, with no evidence of bleeding or noise. The film stuck to a realistic appearance for hues and they seemed clear and clean. Black levels looked fairly deep and dark, and shadow detail generally was good. Some scenes made Leon overly difficult to see, however.
Virtually no problems affected the excellent Dolby Digital 5. The mix provided a tremendously broad and involving soundfield. At virtually all times, discrete audio engulfed the viewer and makes the experience much more exciting than it otherwise would be.
The sound designers really had a field day with this one, as they integrated the sounds well. Everything seemed appropriately placed and the entire mix blended together smoothly. It's a simply fantastic example of audio design, with active surrounds that contributed a lot to the presentation.
The quality of the sound seemed equally strong. Although much of it clearly must have been dubbed, dialogue appeared warm and natural, with no edginess or problems with intelligibility. Music was bold and strong and it displayed excellent dynamic range. The effects were the real stars of the show, however, as one might expect. All of the sounds came across as clean and realistic, with virtually no distortion. What follows is a desperate race to the suitcases. However, the plot really plays second fiddle here to the spectacular action sequences, and the awesome cinematography.
If you really sat down and analysed the plot, you'd have a field day picking the inconsistencies and continuity faults in this movie. It's easier to simply sit back and enjoy the ride. Don't wish to see plot synopses in the future? Change your configuration. Transfer Quality Video This re-release of Cliffhanger has been given a new video transfer, and it is stunning although not of reference quality.
The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 2. Sharpness is generally superb throughout, with a gorgeous array of fine detail on offer in the image. This is the area of the transfer which is most improved over the previous version of Cliffhanger.
Whilst the previous transfer was very good, this one surpasses it in its ability to resolve fine image detail. It is, however, worth noting that the last half of the movie looks significantly sharper than the first half of the movie. Shadow detail is in general quite good, although most locations are brightly lit, so there is not much opportunity for the transfer to shine in this area.
The spectacular opening sequence suffered very slightly from grain, but I suspect that this is inherent in the source material. The previously-released Cliffhanger transfer was the same in this regard. Colours are vivid and nicely saturated. Most importantly, there is no colour bleed, even in shots which are predominantly white.
Impressively, there is no aliasing in this transfer. Given the level of detail on offer, this is a pleasant surprise. There are also no MPEG artefacts to be seen. There are a few film artefacts visible, but none are overly distracting. This disc is RSDL -formatted. The layer change is placed in Chapter 8, at It is dreadfully placed. Mid-scene, it interrupts both the panning visual action and the smoothly flowing orchestral accompaniment.
This is one of the worst-placed layer changes I have ever seen, right up with shockers like the one in Dune: Special Edition. I listened to the English soundtrack and the Audio Commentary track. Dialogue is mostly clear and easy to understand, within the limits imposed by Sylvester Stallone 's slur. The opening sequence is a tad problematic dialogue-wise, with the aggressively mixed score and sound effects requiring concentration on the centre channel in order to discern the dialogue.
Audio sync is a significant problem for this transfer, with a good 10 minutes of this DVD being noticeably out of sync at around the 40 minute mark. Some of this can be attributed to poor ADR work, but I suspect at least some of this issue is transfer-induced.
The two passages most noticeably out of sync were a passage in the airplane from to and a passage from onwards. In comparison, the previously released version of Cliffhanger was not as far out of sync as this version. Back to Review Index.
Back to Quick Reviews. Michelle Joyner is one of my favorite actresses. And I've only seen her in two movies. In Cliffhanger , she's the neophyte climber at the start whose teddy bear falls 4, feet, only to be followed by her own self when Sylvester Stallone's character can't get ahold of her.
It's one of the most harrowing scenes in all cinema, and even the editor of the film, Frank Urioste, admits in the DVD's audio commentary that the opening scene is better than the rest of the movie but then he realizes what he is saying and immediately backpedals. Stallone, on his commentary track, says that the girl had to do die in order to establish a human dimension for his character, a troubled, haunted man, unlike the kind he had been playing of late.
And director Renny Harlin real name: Lauri Mauritz Harjola reveals that the girl dies in order to establish that the mountains are, indeed dangerous. By the way, Joyner's character is named Sarah. Two years later, in , she played Sherry Mauldin in Outbreak. She only appeared in a brilliant sequence in which director Wolfgang Petersen charts the course of a disease, from sniffles to staying home to being rounded up by the authorities, then to death, to a public burning, and then to just one image in a batch of photos slid across a Washington, D.
She has perfect American looks, an upturned nose and an overbite, and makes a perfect victim. Part of Harlin's genius is that he saw that in her and was able to evoke audience sympathy and terror in that opening sequence. Incidentally, another actor who pops up in Cliffhanger is Zach Grenier, who has been in a lot of recently released DVDs. I have no idea why this is so, except that he seems to be another Todd Field, the sort of actor who routinely appears in blockbusters.
But back to Cliffhanger. The plot is simple and linear.
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