On D List of Movie Reviews
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Daylight (1996)
Rate:
8
Viewed:
4/04, 10/20, 12/21
10/20:
Bringing back good memories of the 70's disaster genre, Daylight is a respectable entry.
A major flaw of such films is too much star power. The more big names there are in the cast, the worse the overall product is.
But it's not the case for Daylight which is
The Poseidon Adventure meets
Cliffhanger. Thankfully, the possibility of a romance has been dispensed with.
It has one huge name in Sylvester Stallone with the rest being filled out by common players we've seen in one picture or another.
Yes, Viggo Mortenson appears, but he wasn't well-known that time. The result is more emphasis on the characters' survival
in the face of disaster inside the NY-NJ tunnel.
Kit Latura didn't have to go inside, but he did. That makes him a hero, and there are many acts of heroism along the way.
Unfortunately, people die, and nothing can be done about it at the moment given the circumstances. When the situation looks
bleak, survivors will invariably generate negative thoughts and act out; that's what many did the whole time,
turning Daylight into a psychological actioner.
What I like about Stallone's character is that he isn't made out to be a superhero with awesome abilities. He's a normal person
who has to rely on his wits and past experience, so it's a tough situation for everybody involved. I'm not sure,
but it would help if somebody had good ideas to pass along. Perhaps they just didn't have any. At least, Ray Nord tried despite
his opportunistic marketing visions.
The reason for the rating of '7' is the special effects. It's not fabulous; some parts look real, and others are either
dated or fake, especially at the end. I can tell the filmmakers applied a great deal of mattes. Sometimes, there are
implausible moments that don't jibe with reality. However, I can believe the blowout because of my swimming experience of
being stuck at the bottom of a wave while waiting to be propelled back up.
Several drivers who were inside the car as the fireball came blasting through should have been melted to death instantly.
Don't we have that in evidence from the Mount Vesuvius eruption in 79 AD? On the other hand, the water is too cold
for everybody, and they should've died of hypothermia. At the same time, they could've looked inside some cars for
something dry to wear, even from the dead people, including blankets to replace their wet clothes.
All in all, Daylight is a low-key Stallone vehicle that succeeds as an interesting disaster picture in spite of some
okay special effects and logic flaws.
12/21:
Daylight brings back good memories of the 70's disaster pictures.
It has a lot in common with
The Poseidon Adventure. I had come off a bad, slow movie although it was only 80
minutes long. Daylight is half an hour longer yet zooms through quickly. The key difference? Things are happening!
It's what movies should be about: entertainment.
When Daylight came out, Sylvester Stallone had already lost the box-office power that he enjoyed for more than a decade,
so it's his last great actioner. Despite him being at his vintage best, there are annoying characters
to put up with. They make the film a bit hard to get through.
All in all, you can't go wrong with an action-packed Stallone picture like Daylight.