DAYLIGHT
A film review by Christopher E. Meadows
Copyright 1996 Christopher E. Meadows
[PG-13] Directed by Rob Cohen; starring Sylvester Stallone My rating: 8/10 (**** out of *****)
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. Permission granted for distribution through rec.arts.movies.reviews and all associated archival. Permission granted for free redistribution via cyberspace as long as this message remains attached. All other rights reserved to the author.
-- Chris Meadows aka | Author, Team M.E.C.H.A., Crapshoot & Co. robotech@jurai.net | With a World Wide Web homepage located at robotech@eyrie.org | http://www.jurai.net/~robotech/index.html
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