Terminal Velocity (Review)

...it's the boredom.

…it’s the boredom.

There was a time when Hollywood gave Charlie Sheen a trial run at being a bona fide leading man. A very short time.

To be fair it isn’t Mr Sheen’s fault that Terminal Velocity suffers from a case of Terminal Blandness. There is not one notable scene, sequence, even moment that seeks to differentiate it from other dull actioners. No nanosecond that made your eyes open wide or your jaw drop. It’s all so very routine.

Sheen plays Ditch Brody, an adrenalin junkie skydiving instructor who chases thrills and skirts. It is when Chris Morrow (Natassja Kinski) a young attractive Russian woman asks him for skydiving lessons that Ditch thinks he can multi-task and indulge both passions simultaneously.

It is only once the plane is in the air that Ditch realises that while his intentions were… Sheenian, hers were suicidal. She leaps from the plane towards the earth unassisted. No sooner has the body hit the ground in a puff of Wile E Coyote dust, that Ditch realises that he has most certainly run out of last chances.

But of course the film isn’t going out like that, even though in retrospect Ditch’s incarceration and a thirty minute film might have proven a blessing in disguise.

Unfortunately we aren’t that lucky. Ditch escapes custody and within minutes he has not only proven that his negligence wasn’t to blame, but also that Chris isn’t nearly as dead as everyone thinks. (Oh come on she’s not getting poster credit for a three minute cameo.)

With Ditch wise cracking in the face of danger and Chris providing the pretty face of not danger, the pair run, jump and drive about the place, pursued by the authorities, the KGB, and definitely not logic.

As mentioned aside from Sheen’s occasional dry humour there is precious little to suggest anyone involved gave more than a moment’s thought to putting this together. It all pans out exactly as you fear it will, and like a skydiver without a parachute, it all heads straight down inexorably toward a painful and inevitable conclusion.

Final Rating – 5.5 / 10. There were two skydiving films released in 1994, Wesley Snipes’ Drop Zone being the other, the chutes opened for neither.

About OGR

While I try to throw a joke or two into proceedings when I can all of the opinions presented in my reviews are genuine. I don't expect that all will agree with my thoughts at all times nor would it be any fun if you did, so don't be shy in telling me where you think I went wrong... and hopefully if you think I got it right for once. Don't be shy, half the fun is in the conversation after the movie.
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