Review of Cliffhanger (1993) by Gilmar G — 14 Jul 2009

Cliffhanger is the best of Sylvester Stallone's muscle-bound actioners. It's not without a few flaws (mainly that Stallone should be dead by hypothermia or at least severe frostbite about three or four times throughout the movie), but it makes up for it by being entertaining from start to finish, sometimes spectacularly so.

John Lithgow is a great bad-guy, at least until he turns rabid with rage by the end. His ruthlessness and non-threatening tones add a nice layer of menace to the character. I like Stallone's work in Cliffhanger with angst and regret. He has a face and voice that sometimes seems like it's carrying the weight of the world, and so his character is tailor-made for him. He indeed has a body that you might believe could make some of the impossible climbs his character has to make, though I don't think having a bigger body would make you any less susceptible to extreme hypothermia (and, at the very least, the extremities would be riddled with frostbite). Well, if the script paid too much attention to that side of the reality coin, Cliffhanger would have been over after about thirty minutes, and we wouldn't see Stallone killing a lot of baddies so creatively (even when he should quite literally be a popsicle).

Cliffhanger has good rewatchability. Not every month or anything like that, but I'm good if I can pop it in maybe three or four times a year. I think the premise is pretty creative and, as I said, it's very entertaining throughout, and there's probably only one or two short boring parts in the early going. When the baddies hook up to the treasury plane, the action almost never stops until the last flare has been struck. It's an excellent movie for any action junkie (though I can't imagine one who hasn't actually seen Cliffhanger yet).