This movie is starting to show its age a bit, and, let's face it, some of the stuff that goes down in the film strains one's credulity, but on the whole it's a terrific movie.
Stallone manages to straddle his two basic character roles in this film, the first being the ultra tough guy (see Rocky and Rambo) and the other being the regular guy put into a weird situation and trying to deal with it (see Stop or my mother will shoot). Apart from a few early scenes where he is moping around, you mostly get the tough guy and that, of course, is our preferred Stallone format.
John Lithgow is also in fine form as the villain of the piece.
The plot line is clear, understandable and plausible. The scenery is incredible, the suspense and tension consistently keeping you on edge.
Apparently Sly did a lot of his own stunts and he's in fine form.
My only complaint about the entire film is the opening sequence where Stallone and his crew of forest rangers are rescuing another ranger and a novice climber off a mountain peak. Now, on the whole, the scene is intense and works well, but the underlying premise is ridiculous. We are expected to believe that a novice climber would find herself, with no visible equipment, on top of an extremely difficult rock climb and that an experienced ranger would take her there. Then we are asked to accept that they would choose to rescue her by tethering a helicopter to the mountain with a metal cable and letting her traverse to the helicopter in a kind of bosun's chair with safety cable, all of which would then inexplicably and utterly fail. It's preposterous.
This initial scene sets up an apparent identity crisis/tension with the other forest rangers and Stallone, but the thing is, that after the first reel, there is really no reference to it at all and you wonder why they bothered. But that's a small complaint, enjoy the movie, its 90 minutes of pure escapism.
Two thumbs up from this critic.
Stallone manages to straddle his two basic character roles in this film, the first being the ultra tough guy (see Rocky and Rambo) and the other being the regular guy put into a weird situation and trying to deal with it (see Stop or my mother will shoot). Apart from a few early scenes where he is moping around, you mostly get the tough guy and that, of course, is our preferred Stallone format.
John Lithgow is also in fine form as the villain of the piece.
The plot line is clear, understandable and plausible. The scenery is incredible, the suspense and tension consistently keeping you on edge.
Apparently Sly did a lot of his own stunts and he's in fine form.
My only complaint about the entire film is the opening sequence where Stallone and his crew of forest rangers are rescuing another ranger and a novice climber off a mountain peak. Now, on the whole, the scene is intense and works well, but the underlying premise is ridiculous. We are expected to believe that a novice climber would find herself, with no visible equipment, on top of an extremely difficult rock climb and that an experienced ranger would take her there. Then we are asked to accept that they would choose to rescue her by tethering a helicopter to the mountain with a metal cable and letting her traverse to the helicopter in a kind of bosun's chair with safety cable, all of which would then inexplicably and utterly fail. It's preposterous.
This initial scene sets up an apparent identity crisis/tension with the other forest rangers and Stallone, but the thing is, that after the first reel, there is really no reference to it at all and you wonder why they bothered. But that's a small complaint, enjoy the movie, its 90 minutes of pure escapism.
Two thumbs up from this critic.