“Don’t bother to buckle up — you may not want to survive this.”

Justin’s rating: “Hold On” as a tag line sounds like a parent urging a toddler not to poop his pants

Justin’s review: When Cliffhanger arrived in theaters in 1993, those of us who were teens back then knew that it was going to be a Big Deal. Sylvester Stallone was seemingly poised to leap past his Rocky and Rambo personas, and director Renny Harlin was just hitting his career-high stride following Die Hard 2. And it was a Big Deal, too: The ad blitz, positive reviews, and summer season release helped to push this film into the top 10 of 1993 and Stallone’s own top 10 in terms of box office.

Die Hard on a mountain? Stunning cinematography? Adorable Janine Turner sporting her Northern Exposure pixie cut? John Lithgow spitting out the F-word every .5 seconds? A dude sledding down a mountain using another guy’s body as the sled? Blood squibs on clearance? That was some irresistible stuff. Over 30 years later, I can vividly remember going to see Cliffhanger at the local second-run theater with my high school friends and getting swept up in the intensity of it.

While it might be easy to draw a direct line to John McClane, Stallone’s Gabe is a different breed. He’s not a combat-trained cop; he’s a mountain rescue worker who’s used to pulling people out of tricky spots. And he’s damaged goods, having lost his best friend’s girlfriend in a gut-wrenching opening sequence.

But you know how action movies do therapy: Toss that wounded soul right into the thick of a terrorist plot to steal $100 million from an airplane! Cue a crash into the tops of the Rockies, a horrible winter storm, armed robbers on the prowl, and Gabe and his friends forced to help find the money.

What very few Die Hard knock-offs get right is taking the time to craft a truly memorable villain, but Cliffhanger — of all movies — did it well. John Lithgow is Qualen, the leader of this highly motivated group of bad guys, and he’s about as far from his Harry and the Hendersons role as one could fathom. He’s positively ruthless and adaptive in his pursuit of his goal, which feels as tenuous as success does for the good guys.

Sure, maybe his accent is a touch ridiculous, but when Lithgow hauls out a hard stare, you gulp and consider that he’s capable of anything.

So on one hand you’ve got bad guys with lots of weapons and a predisposition to murder, but on the other hand, you’ve got good guys who are expert climbers and consider this their backyard. It could tip either way, and that tension stays thick throughout most of this flick.

Another way that Cliffhanger distinguishes itself is with the mountaintop setting and climbing sequences. That elevates (ha) it above mere gunplay while adding another layer of delicious danger and plenty of verticality for the camera to track. Gabe often isn’t trying to kill the villains or set traps; often he’s simply trying to stay alive and adapt to the situation at hand.

I can’t tell you how much I like the way Sylvester Stallone plays Gabe. He’s got Rocky’s affable good guy attitude but is several degrees smarter and not too eager to be chatty and quippy with his foes. This is the Stallone that I remember most from my childhood, the action hero who saved people instead of gunning them down by the scores.

If you’re in the mood for a good-looking, taut, and fast-paced action thriller, Cliffhanger has what you seek in spades. The stakes are high, the sky candy lush, and the victory comes at a cost — but it all feels worth it in the end. I loved this in ’93, and I still think it holds up great today.

Intermission!

• That Tri-Star logo and Carolco logo back-to-back hit so hard
• Dang, I forgot how good this soundtrack is, too. Now I need to go buy it.
• That falling teddy bear…
• “Why don’t you do us all a favor and quit hoarding all the guilt?”
• The plane heist scene. The whole scene. Also, I learned that you can just eject a tail cone of a plane for some reason.
• You go wounded FBI guy! He’s the stealth hero of this movie.
• “Get him to a hospital — fast!” [shoves him out of the plane]
• That tracking device creates a wireframe model of mountains somehow
• “Get a rope, I want this dog on a leash.”
• Maybe don’t shoot grenades into a snowy mountainside unless you relish being swept away by an avalanche
• You can survive for a long time on an icy mountain slope in only a t-shirt and pants
• Haha the snowman and the empty case
• Sledding on a bad guy to his death
• “Costs a fortune to heat this place.”
• Wait, why is everyone going to sleep? This is not sleepytime!
• I always want that parachute kid to make it
• They just wandered onto the set of Bats
• Stalactites make good murder weapons
• “You should see me bake a cake.”
• Dude, he shoots his girlfriend just to win. That’s commitment.
• The rabbit vertigo shot
• Love that piston gun!
• As an aside, I always thought this poster design was brilliant: