in _daylight_ , sylvester stallone breaks no new ground , cinematically speaking , but he covers familiar territory quite well .
yesterday , as i was going about my business in the university bookstore , i noticed this stand with these _daylight_ movie posters on it .
i had never heard of the movie , so i stopped by to check it out .
it turned out that they were giving away free passes to the movie for people who had or applied for the credit card they were offering .
so , i shrugged , thought , ” hey , they probably won’t give me the card anyway , and i could always use a free movie , ” so i signed up .
all in all , i don’t think i got that bad of a deal , either .
rob cohen , who has previously brought us such films as _dragon : the bruce lee story_ and , more recently , _dragonheart_ ( gee , i wonder if he likes dragons for some reason ?
you think ? ) , now brings us a very nicely executed disaster picture , with fx by industrial light and magic , about the after-effects of an explosion that collapses a busy tunnel between new york and new jersey .
sylvester stallone plays kit latura , who is essentially a carbon copy of the character he played in _cliffhanger_ : a paramedic on the outs because he made a mistake that got people killed .
when the crisis hits , he is in the right place at the right time and takes it upon himself to go in and get everybody out .
there are other similarities to _cliffhanger_ , too ; perhaps the only real difference is that _cliffhanger_ had a villain , where _daylight_’s bad guy is mother nature .
in fact , had the two movies been made in hong kong , this might have been titled _cliffhanger ii_–it bears the same relationship to that film that most hk film ” sequels ” do to their predecessors .
the first half-hour of _daylight_ is setup .
subplots are woven , and the mechanism of the disaster is assembled .
we meet all the important people . . . toxic waste disposal truck drivers ; a young , frustrated , jilted , rejected playwright ; a family struggling to stay together ; an older couple and their dog ; a truckload of prisoners ; an ad agency executive ; a tunnel police officer ; stallone ; and others .
we watch the trucks trundle toward their destination ; we watch stallone and so many others driving toward the tunnel for their various reasons .
and then , thirty minutes into the film , _boom_ .
and it’s a big one .
>from there on in , it’s sly stallone to the rescue .
and rescue he does , enduring batterings , beatings , falls , repeated immersion in 34-degree water , explosions , mud , rats , and constant setbacks , before going on to save the day , sly-style .
again . . . there’s
nothing new here .
and yet there doesn’t need to be .
the fun of _daylight_ is not in the story but in the execution .
the special-effects are first-rate , thanks to industrial light and magic , and the ensemble cast works well together .
once the film hits its stride , it carries the viewer right along to the finish , with very few jars along the way .
this review is copyright 1996 by christopher e . meadows .
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