We’ve all been through the traumatizing experience of watching a movie that kicks off with a such a spectacular bang, hopes for a top-quality time at the theater or at home are instantly and exponentially raised. It’s one of the worst feelings in the world when things fall off a cliff immediately afterwards, something that blighted 1996’s disaster epic Daylight.
To be fair, anything after 1993 wasn’t exactly the high point of Sylvester Stallone’s career at the time, so maybe being quietly excited for an effects-heavy action blockbuster featuring the Rocky and Rambo legend was the wrong move from the start. However, director Rob Cohen’s subterranean slice of escapism still cost $80 million to produce, so some stellar set pieces were a minimum requirement.
The first act is nothing short of incredible, using its hefty budget to indicate that there’s going to be plenty of deafening explosions and high-stakes sequences to come. Unfortunately, as soon as Stallone and the merry band of supporting players end up trapped in an underground tunnel and begin trading interminable exposition, things nosedive into mediocrity in staggeringly quick fashion.
Even now more than a quarter of a century on from its release, a Reddit thread has offered the damning consensus that Daylight can be neatly surmised as “started strong, but fell to pieces once the dialogue took precedence.” It might sound harsh, but it’s also true, although there’s definitely some mileage in revisiting the woefully uneven and incredibly expensive misfire with your brain turned off and the volume cranked up.
Published: May 15, 2023 02:52 am