We've seen three true "Die Hard" films. We've sat through even more "Die Hard" impostors. We've paid for die-hard-on-a-battleship. We've witnessed numerous examples of die-hard-on-an-airplane. We've been forced to watch die-hard-in-an-amusement park. Is there any steam left in the "Die Hard" machine? What could possibly be next?
To answer that question is the ever-original Sylvester Stallone - whose die-hard-in-an underwater-tunnel film, "Daylight," breaks into theaters everywhere this week.
Not horrible and not especially good, "Daylight" tentatively blends the action and thrills of that groundbreaking Bruce Willis trilogy with the tension and tragedy of disaster films like "The Poseidon Adventure."
"Daylight" achieves great, though not innovative, success when emulating the full-throttle adventure and explosions made standard by "Die Hard," but it falls short when it is purporting to create the tumultuous humanity and sweeping melodrama seen in nearly every disaster film to date.
Though it is a carbon copy of nearly every action film since the mid-'80s, "Daylight" still manages to be somewhat creative while wallowing in a genre all but devoid of creativity.
Take its plot, for example. It's Friday evening in New York City. Several citizens and tourists are wrapping up their arduous weeks of work and play. They hop into their cars, taxis, and / or limousines and head for New Jersey. The bridge is congested with commuters. The obvious second choice is the Holland Tunnel. Although that choice is obvious, it is not exactly the correct option, in terms of destiny.
The vehicles inch toward the tunnel: the bus transporting juvenile prisoners; the family sedan carrying a trio of dysfunctional Maryland residents; the luxury car holding an elderly couple and their dog; the jalopy taking the fed-up playwright back home to Indiana; the hummer racing the famous head of a sportswear company to the airport; the trucks hauling explosive material; the stolen car careening toward doom with three young criminals inside.
As all these vehicles enter the tunnel, the criminals spin out of control and collide spectacularly with the explosive material, setting off an amazing series of explosions that seal off both ends of the north tunnel and immediately kills most of the people inside.
Conveniently, former EMS chief Kit Latura (Stallone), now a cab driver, is directly outside the New York end of the tunnel and springs into action, tending to wounds and directing traffic.
Even more conveniently, Kit has inside knowledge of the tunnel's structure and functions, due to a test situation in the tunnel two years earlier.
Before you can say superhero, Kit decides that the only way to save the trapped survivors, who, coincidentally, are the people we have just been introduced to, is to perilously enter the tunnel through a sequence of enormous, precariously spinning ventilation fans.
Once inside, Kit attempts to organize the bickering, skeptical, panicked survivors and get them to, who'd have guessed, daylight. The all-night ordeal in the tunnel is composed of many trials including downed power lines, fires, rising water, hypothermia, crumbling cement, cascading milk trucks and flocks of rats.
Needless to say, there's a happy ending to the film, but not without losing some people and fears along the way.
So the plot is not all that creative; it is a Stallone film, after all.
Better than past Stallone vehicles, namely "Judge Dredd" and "Assassins," "Daylight" is brightened by the supporting cast of survivors and the supporting menagerie of great sets and stunts.
Even though the characters are, for the most part, one-dimensional, stereotypical caricatures, they are definitely believable in the reluctancy to work as a team.
"NYPD Blue" veteran Amy Brenneman, as the burned-out writer Madeleine, becomes the unofficial leader of the group, ultimately relinquishing control to Sly's heroic cab driver and reducing her role to that of spunky sidekick. Though limited, Brenneman's character is the most plausible of the film, and also gets some of the best lines, calling the rats "shit with legs."
Also rising above their weak material are renowned character actors Claire Bloom, who is the only actor in Hollywood to have starred with both Charlie Chaplin and Sylvester Stallone, as the fragile elderly socialite; Viggo Mortensen as the arrogant, vain sports entrepreneur; Stan Shaw of "Fried Green Tomatoes" fame as an ill-fated transit cop; and "What's Love Got To Do With It" co-star Vanessa Bell Calloway as Grace, the above ground protector of the survivors.
Sets and stunts are probably the greatest asset the film has to offer. Seemingly pre-designed for a ride at Universal Studios, the sets range from a surreal wind tunnel that Kit must overcome, to a waist-high pool adorned by a rolling truck, to a creepy, long-lost chapel that serves as a refuge from rising water - all are wonderfully tactile and vivid.
The stunts quite possibly exceed the mastery of the set design. Starting with the awe-inspiring explosion and concluding with the awe-inspiring geyser-like escape sequence, the film is a thrill-ride of treacherous predicaments that come to life with some movie magic.
Using "movie magic" to describe "Daylight" is not to insinuate that the film is an unforgettable classic of the screen that possesses that special something. Rather, the opposite is true. "Daylight" is a forgettable, throw away piece of action fluff that defuses its own explosiveness with some soggy melodrama.
Who wants to see a melodramatic action flick, anyway? Especially one in which choice lines like "It feels like you're getting tired, but you're actually getting dead," and "Where's Cooper? Where's John? Cooper-John?" are uttered about hypothermia and the use of a dog (Cooper) to take the place of a dead son (John).
And don't forget the worst melodrama of all - seeing Sylvester Stallone get all misty recalling his past mistakes to an already teary Amy Brenneman. "Did you ever have a way out?" a curious Brenneman asks. "No," replies a weary Stallone, tears in his eyes, his voice breaking. This scene begs, "Respect me as an actor! Give me an Oscar nomination, damnit!" But pathetically, it just receives some chuckles, blank stares and seat shifts to avoid cramping.
Sly Stallone looks astounded as he is trapped in another horrible action-adventure flick.