Review of The Edge (1997) by Ben F — 23 Sep 2012

For the most part, we are lucky for one thing. "The Edge" simply does what it was sent out to do, and that's entertain audiences. Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin give the necessary star-power to excel the film into the spectrum of positivism, rather than in the shadow of suckiness. Lee Tamahori uses all the necessary tools to make the film as solid as it was. Simply an entertaining picture.

Hopkins plays billionaire Chares Morse, who has really no experience in the wild at all. For some odd reason, he has a bunch of knowledge about living in the wilderness. The reason for this is because he has studied all the necessary materials to read his whole life. So when he and a couple of his assistants get lost in the woods, its up to him to get his crew out of their alive. But he doesn't know who he can and can't trust. Overall, its a pretty interesting concept for a film, and the execution, though it may be a little linear, is a comfortable approach that seems to pay off for the most part.

Like I said before, the acting is pretty solid. This solid acting obviously comes from Baldwin and Hopkins, who do good jobs at reading their lines in dramatic fashion. It's definitely one of those films that with the wrong actors would have gone south, but these guys knew how to get the job done, so everything was alright at the end. The film certainly didn't have a powerhouse script or anything. These guys made the movie.

Another thing that I certainly liked about the movie was its visuals. Wonderful landscape sequences, shots of the mountainside, and all that kind of stuff. The beautiful aesthetics certainly kept me entertained, when the story began to feel a little contrived and predictable. These moments were few, so that was a relief.

You see the ending coming from a mile away, but the weird thing is that you are strangely comfortable with this. When watching "The Edge" it doesn't seem like you want to see anything wholeheartedly original. You just wanted to have some cheer popcorn entertainment. If you watch this film, that's what you'll get. With solid performances, and some good cinematography, "The Edge" does what it needs to do to acquire the necessary audience that it sets out to garner. It's a film that will bring you from boredom to not boredom. Check it out.