Cliffhanger

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General		Extras
Category	Action	Theatrical Trailer(s)	None
Rating		Other Trailer(s)	None
Year Released	1993	Commentary Tracks	None
Running Time	108:01 minutes	Other Extras	None
RSDL/Flipper	RSDL (57:56)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region	4	Director	Renny Harlin
Studio Distributor	Columbia Tristar	Starring	Sylvester Stallone John Lithgow Michael Rooker Janine Turner Leon Paul Winfield Ralph Waite
Case	Transparent Amaray
RRP	$34.95	Music	Trevor Jones

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	MPEG	2.0
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Dolby Digital	5.1
16x9 Enhancement	Yes	Soundtrack Languages	French (MPEG 2.0 ) English (Dolby Digital 5.1) English (MPEG 2.0 )
Theatrical Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Macrovision	Yes
Subtitles	French English Norwegian Swedish Finnish Danish	Smoking	No

    Gabe Walker (Sylvester Stallone) works for a mountain rescue service, along with his buddy Hal Tucker (Michael Rooker) and his girlfriend Jessie Deighan (Janine Turner). One day, Hal thinks that it would be a good idea to take his girlfriend climbing, but it all turns to disaster and she plunges to her death. Hal blames Gabe. Gabe blames Gabe. Gabe goes naval-gazing for a while.

    Meanwhile, a crooked Federal Treasury official, Travers (Rex Linn) plans a daring airborne hijacking of a Treasury plane carrying $100 million dollars. The criminal mastermind he collaborates with is Qualen (John Lithgow). The plan goes wrong, and the baddies are stranded on Gabe and Hal's mountain. They call for help, and Hal and Gabe respond. When the baddies are found, they force the good guys to chase after the money, but Gabe manages to escape, and it becomes imperative for Gabe to get to the money first.

    The story has a few pretty gaping plot holes, and the characters are all pretty one-dimensional, but the stunts and the action are second-to-none. There is some stunning cinematography in this movie. The pace is kept up throughout, and there is never a dull moment.

    Replayability is a little limited because the one-dimensional baddies eventually begin to grate (this is the third time I have watched this movie), but nonetheless it remains a pretty good movie overall.

Video

    The transfer is presented at an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, 16x9 enhanced. The cinematography would be severely compromised by being Panned & Scanned, and indeed, I have seen some of this movie in the Pan & Scan format (on TV and on the Region 1 version of this disc), and it looks pretty awful.

    The transfer was generally sharp and clear throughout, with only some occasional graininess to the image. Shadow detail was acceptable, and no low level noise was apparent.

    The colours were generally well rendered, though I felt that the opening sequence was a little undersaturated.

    No MPEG artefacts were seen. Film-to-video artefacts were non-existent. Film artefacts were rare. They were somewhat excessively present through the opening titles and the closing credits, but were rare during the feature itself.

    This disc is an RSDL disc, with the layer change satisfactorily placed at 57:56, between Chapters 15 and 16.

Audio

    There was a minor annoyance with the soundtrack, in that occasionally there were very momentary audio dropouts and clicks here and there. These did not happen often, but they were perceptible, and they occurred several times during the end credits. Fortunately, they were only rare during the movie proper, but they certainly became quite distracting during the end credits. I believe this may have occurred as a result of post-processing the audio of this movie. Unlike many other Region 4 releases, this one has has the sound reprocessed so that it is at the same pitch as the Region 1 release of this movie, rather than having the typical semitone pitch shift upwards. This audio glitch has lead me to significantly mark down the audio rating for this disc from what would have otherwise been a near-reference quality disc. I compared the soundtrack of the Region 1 version of this disc at equivalent points, and this did not have the aforementioned minor audio dropouts.

    Dialogue was always spot on and easy to understand, even from Sylvester Stallone who is notorious for mumbling his lines.

    There were no audio sync problems other than scattered slightly out-of-sync ADR lines here and there.

    The score by Trevor Jones was a typical action movie score, with a combination of tense pieces of music and action pieces of music. To me, it sounded somewhat clichéd, but remained effective in creating the appropriate mood.

    The surround channels were very aggressively used for music and effects, creating quite an enveloping mix.

    The .1 channel received a large amount of signal with a very aggressive bottom end placed on the action sequences, making them somewhat larger than life. A good example of this is the avalanche scene which sets the whole room rattling and rolling.

What's Missing / What's Extra

Menu

    The video quality is pretty good.

    The audio quality is a very good, aggressive surrounding mix marred slightly by the odd audio dropout here and there.

    The extras are non-existent.

Video
Audio
Extras	nil
Plot
Overall

© Michael Demtschyna
16th June 1999
Amended 1st September 2000