Cliffhanger (1993/Sony Blu-ray)
Picture: B- Sound: B+ Extras: C Film: C
In
another temporary comeback for Sylvester Stallone, Renny Harlin’s Cliffhanger (1993) was a decent-sized
hit that is also Harlin’s only watchable film among a long series of duds that
include Adventures Of Ford Fairlane,
Driven, Mindhunters, Long Kiss
Goodnight and Cutthroat Island. Stallone plays a mountain climber who is
recruited to go into the Rocky Mountains to recover gold lost in a mid-air
heist scheme that sends a valuable suitcase plummeting. Now, everyone (including John Lithgow hamming
up the villain role) wants it and dome will kill.
The
action is decent and the casting a little odd to this day (including Michael
Rooker, Janine Turner, Caroline Goodall, Paul Winfield, Ralph Waite and Bruce
McGill), but this is interesting give or take its formulaic approach. Still, it got Michael France the job of
reviving the James Bond franchise with GoldenEye
and has been hit and miss since, with the 2004 Punisher being his best work to
date.
It is
worth a look, but partly for its technical side and to see what does work. Just be prepared to wait through more of
everything you’ve seen before. Too bad
because with some more thought and restraint in some places, this would have
held up better.
The 1080p
2.35 X 1 digital high definition image was shot in real 35mm anamorphic
Panavision and even issued in 70mm blow-ups, which totally works for such a
good looking film. In this transfer,
however, is a little softer than I would have liked. It was always a good-looking film thanks to
the money put in it and was shot by the late, great Director of Photography
Alex Thomson after his impressive work on Alien
3 (reviewed elsewhere on this site) and with a track record that includes Excalibur, Legend, Year Of The Dragon,
Eureka
and The Krays. That work helped make this a hit as much as
anything.
The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix is derived from the original Dolby SR
(Spectral Recording) analog and 70mm 4.1 Dolby magnetic soundmix, which in this
case is seems to be the source because the upgrade is a big surprise with great
soundfield, articulation and nice rendering of Trevor Jones’ score that had its
demonstration moments. It also puts to
shame many newer, fancier all-digital mixes, so this is the #1 reason to try
out this Blu-ray.
Extras include
Blu-ray exclusive movieIQ and BD-Live interactive features, plus two Deleted
Scenes with option director intros, two feature length audio commentary tracks
(one with the technical crew, the other with Harlin and Stallone), personal
Harlin intro, Stallone On The Edge
Making-Of featurette, Special Effects featurette focusing on two sequences, storyboard
comparison and trailers for this and other Sony Blu-ray releases.
- Nicholas Sheffo
