Final Ascent

This picture tells the story of a father and daughter trying to overcome the loss of a loved one. Without giving anything away, they need to work together to battle the bad guys. Mountain climbers will love this picture. It's full of interesting twists and turns and has some very good characters. Check it out on Fox Family or on video!

Our family has experienced the loss of a loved one leaving a strained relationship between my daughter and my husband. I found the relationship between the father and daughter in "Final Ascent" to be so accurate that I was brought to tears. I enjoyed the plot and the action just fine, but the relationship between the father and daughter really rang true in a way that I haven't really seen since "Ordinary People." This film really moved me. Great family movie!

Alright, the film is like "Cliffhanger" only no budget, but I like the bad guy getting altitude sickness, as one other reviewer wrote. It's fun to see him get progressively sicker but to keep climbing for the money. Some action at the end is so poorly directed that the young girl parachutes down and gets back up too quickly to save her dad. The casting on this film is weak with many of the secondary characters. I assume these were not "Hollywood" hires. Some clever dialogue, though. The pacing of the film seemed good. Heidi Noelle Lenhart comes across as quite likable. In fact, it was her that kept me watching. In the end, this could have been a better film with more money and better secondary actors.

Okay, this is a low budget flick that wants to be big, but to its credit is a villain with foibles. When the baddie in this flick gets altitude sickness, it grounds this picture in reality and adds depth to the villain's character. When he keeps climbing because of his avarice...stopping at nothing to collect his money atop the mountain, we cannot help but delight in his worsening physical state. Heidi Noelle Lenhart is no Julia Roberts but is highly watchable nonetheless. Perhaps this script would have been better with more money behind it, since the characters and dialogue are quite good. Overall, this film kept me watching.

I thought the De Niro/Pacino faceoff in Heat was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see two of our premier actors engage in a mano-a-mano display of their craft--until now. Watching Muldoon and Sabato exchange lines in their sinisterly similar monotone, one recalls perhaps Olivier and Barrymore treading the boards at the Old Vic. A critic (I believe it was Pauline Kael) once said of Muldoon: "He has all the emotional range of a piece of oak furniture." And yet here Sabato matches him in the lumber department, splinter for splinter.

Final Ascent is a remake of Cliffhanger, except without any of the good parts. And if it seems merely mediocre, wait until the last act when it enters the realm of the truly terrible. Watch as our heroine parachutes hundreds of feet off of a mountain, and then climbs approximately twelve feet back up the same mountain to save the character that had been standing right next to her. Watch her climb 10,000 feet in the snow with no gloves and never once give any indication that it's cold. And watch as another character is buried underneath an avalanche, and yet emerges without a trace of snow on him.

The other big reason to watch this movie is Heidi Noelle Lenhart. She runs around a lot and seems very serious about something (maybe a relationship) but I wasn't sure what she was carrying on about because she's just so cute. Her little nose gets so red and runny that you just want to tell her, "Stop chasing the bad people, go back to the lodge, wrap yourself up in a blanket and have a nice warm brandy or maybe some Rumple Minz. And for gosh sakes put some gloves on."

Final Ascent is above all a film for fans of great acting. And just as De Niro one-upped his rival in the hearts of most moviegoers, here it is Muldoon who emerges victorious: he is perhaps the least expressive actor of his generation. Sabato should keep Muldoon around as a sidekick (maybe they could remake an old Bob Hope/Bing Crosby "Road" movie?), because he comes off like Michael Caine by comparison. Muldoon sums it up best when he comes down with altitude sickness and pukes: "What's the matter, you've never thrown up before?" Yes we have Pat. Yes we have.