Cliffhanger (Collector's Edition)

Sylvester Stallone, John Lithgow, Janine Turner. Daring mountain climbers take on terrorists in this edge-of-your-seat thriller. 1993/color/113 min/R/widescreen.

iCliffhanger/i was a 1994 comeback of sorts for action hero Sylvester Stallone, this time thanks to director Renny Harlin (iDie Hard 2/i and iNightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master/i) and some spectacularly rugged and vertigo-inducing high- mountain terrain. The opening sequence alone delivers what the title promises, and there's a doozy of an airplane stunt that was later reprised, with modifications, in iAir Force One/i. Stallone, looking as tough and craggy as the mountains themselves, is a rescue climber who finds himself going after a gang of crooks (headed by John Lithgow in his bad-guy mode) who've hijacked a U.S. Treasury plane and crash landed in the Rockies (played by the Italian Dolomites) with millions of bucks. Outrageous action-packed, snow-packed, and scenery-packed chase sequences (featuring whirring helicopters, whooshing skis, popping gunfire, and clanging pitons that earned the movie Oscar nominations for sound and sound editing) take full advantage of the digital video disc's Dolby Digital 5.1 sound. i--Jim Emerson/i