BEFORE: Now it's Stallone's turn to carry over. Let's keep the big, dumb action movies coming, because it is summer, after all. What better time to watch a movie about climbing on snow-covered mountains? If I just sit really close to the air conditioner while I watch this, it'll become an interactive experience, right?
AFTER: I didn't mind this one nearly as much as I thought I would. I initially added this to the list just because I was looking for another movie to burn on the DVD with "Daylight", and now it ends up as part of a chain, and a link to tomorrow's film. It's almost like my lizard scheduling brain knows what to do, even if it's by accident.
I wonder if the crashed plane in "Expendables 2" was a reference to this film - even though the prizes within the planes were different, both were accessible only by a constantly changing time-coded lock. I've never seen that device before in a film, and now here it is, two nights in a row.
A lot of expressive ham-acting tonight from one of my favorite actors, John Lithgow. I guess someone felt they had to make up for Stallone's lack of expression by getting Lithgow to over-compensate. Or maybe that's just the character, someone delusional enough to think that getting ahold of 100 million dollars would be tantamount to world domination. Not in 1993 dollars, anyway. His character here seems about as clueless and hyper-dramatic as Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers films, which is somewhat unfortunate. Sometimes less is more, guys.
NITPICK POINT: Something's bugging me about the money. 3 cases containing $100 million, in thousand-dollar bills? It would take 1,000 bills of that denomination to equal $1 million, and therefore 100 times that to equal $100 million. So 100,000 bills. I think that stack of money would be larger than you think, and wouldn't fit in three cases of that size. Plus they state that the money is uncirculated, and couldn't be spent. So then why is so much care taken in transporting it, and why does the villain want it? They sort of explain this by saying he has the "resources" to properly spend the money - which would be what, exactly? How come he can spend the money but nobody else can?
NITPICK POINT #2: They set this up by showing a failed rescue attempt, wherein a climber's girlfriend is stranded on a remote mountaintop, and they try to rescue her by helicopter. She's expected to enter the helicopter by going hand-over-hand while hanging from a wire going straight across. Since she was an inexperienced climber, why couldn't they just make the helicopter a little lower, turning the level line into a zip-line?
Then again, I don't know much about rescue operations, mountain climbing, or any survival skills for that matter. Maybe that's for the best - an experienced person would probably find many more N.P.'s than I did. (Besides, lowering the helicopter might have sent her sliding right into the copter blades, for all I know...)
Of particular note is the vast number of times that someone in this film, hero or villain, is trying to sneak around or do something quietly, and ends up either screaming or firing a weapon, or both. No one seems to understand the concept of stealth, plus it is avalanche country - every loud noise you make could be a huge mistake.
Also starring John Lithgow (last seen in "Ricochet"), Michael Rooker (last seen in "Tombstone"), Janine Turner, Rex Linn (last seen in "Wyatt Earp"), Ralph Waite, Leon, Caroline Goodall, Paul Winfield (last seen in "Presumed Innocent"), Max Perlich.
RATING: 5 out of 10 tracking devices
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