John Beck (the original "Rollerball") plays Dr. Maurice Hunter, a so-called "treasure hunter" who's located a doomsday device supposedly created by Tesla back in the early 20th century. It can create mayhem on the power of thought alone. Naturally, you know there will be bad guys out there eager to get their hands on such a weapon. And they hijack (with little effort) a plane carrying Hunter, his daughter Nadia (Julie St. Claire, "Ballistic"), and assorted others. After the plane crashes, some survivors stay back to fend for themselves, while Nadia, and cheery C.I.A. super-agent Jason Ross (Treat Williams, "Deep Rising") avoid relentless villain Julian Beck (German actor Hannes Jaenicke, "Half Past Dead").
Working from an ineffective screenplay by Steve Latshaw ("Jack-O"), director Jim Wynorski does his best to create mindless entertainment for 93 minutes. And make no mistake, it IS mindless. Genuinely bad writing and dialogue mix with copious stock footage cribbed from "Cliffhanger", the remake of "Narrow Margin", and "The Long Kiss Goodnight". And the characters are mostly inane or just plain boring. The villainous Beck lacks a truly colourful personality. However, knowing Wynorski (here using his frequent pseudonym "Jay Andrews"), he does inject plenty of humour, and the ladies present are all quite attractive.
There's an interesting variety of familiar faces here playing the dopey and mostly unsympathetic characters. Treat is amusing as he recalls his "Deep Rising" hero by often wise-cracking his way through intense situations. Gary Hudson ("Road House"), Playboy Playmate Ava Fabian ("Dragnet" '87), Steve Franken ("The Party"), Susan Blakely ("Over the Top"), John Putch ("Jaws 3"), Allan Kolman ("Shivers"), and Richard Riehle ("Office Space") co-star, with ever-hilarious George "Buck" Flower ("They Live") putting in a cameo appearance as a train conductor.
Overall, this is pretty stupid, and only true die-hard B movie enthusiasts may get some entertainment value out of it.
One has to ask themselves this: how can St. Claire and Jaenicke make their way to either shelter or civilization quite easily, yet that one group is stuck on the mountain for God knows how many hours?
Four out of 10.
Working from an ineffective screenplay by Steve Latshaw ("Jack-O"), director Jim Wynorski does his best to create mindless entertainment for 93 minutes. And make no mistake, it IS mindless. Genuinely bad writing and dialogue mix with copious stock footage cribbed from "Cliffhanger", the remake of "Narrow Margin", and "The Long Kiss Goodnight". And the characters are mostly inane or just plain boring. The villainous Beck lacks a truly colourful personality. However, knowing Wynorski (here using his frequent pseudonym "Jay Andrews"), he does inject plenty of humour, and the ladies present are all quite attractive.
There's an interesting variety of familiar faces here playing the dopey and mostly unsympathetic characters. Treat is amusing as he recalls his "Deep Rising" hero by often wise-cracking his way through intense situations. Gary Hudson ("Road House"), Playboy Playmate Ava Fabian ("Dragnet" '87), Steve Franken ("The Party"), Susan Blakely ("Over the Top"), John Putch ("Jaws 3"), Allan Kolman ("Shivers"), and Richard Riehle ("Office Space") co-star, with ever-hilarious George "Buck" Flower ("They Live") putting in a cameo appearance as a train conductor.
Overall, this is pretty stupid, and only true die-hard B movie enthusiasts may get some entertainment value out of it.
One has to ask themselves this: how can St. Claire and Jaenicke make their way to either shelter or civilization quite easily, yet that one group is stuck on the mountain for God knows how many hours?
Four out of 10.