Terminal Velocity

 (1994)

Terminal Velocity Blu-ray offers solid video and audio, but overall it's a mediocre Blu-ray release
A maverick skydiver and a former KGB agent team up to stop the Russian mafia from stealing gold.

For more about Terminal Velocity and the Terminal Velocity Blu-ray release, see the Terminal Velocity Blu-ray Review

Starring: Charlie Sheen, Nastassja Kinski, James Gandolfini, Christopher McDonald, Melvin Van Peebles, Brooke Langton
Director: Deran Sarafian

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Terminal Velocity Blu-ray Review

Does this movie soar or drop like a bad Wesley Snipes skydiving picture?

Reviewed by Martin Liebman, May 23, 2012

It's a rush.

Consider the top names in 1990s Action and titles like Speed and Face/Off probably spring immediately to mind, maybe even Under Siege, but certainly not Terminal Velocity. No, chances are that audiences -- if they even remember the movie -- might instead instinctually lump it in with throwaway junk like Speed 2: Cruise Control and Drop Zone. The truth is that Terminal Velocity cruises to an acceptable middle ground, the film a surprisingly robust, fast-paced, visually exciting, and nicely directed little flick that's held back only by a fairly bland story and indifferent acting. Written by the underrated and venerable David Twohy (writer, Pitch Black, The Arrival, The Fugitive) and starring Charlie Sheen, Terminal Velocity delivers action scenes that get the adrenaline pushed up off the charts and the blood flowing freely, all the while the picture competently maneuvers through the filler in those moments meant to slow the heart rate back to normalcy, but only long enough until the next spectacular high-flying sequence may jump it back up.

It's a bird...it's a plane...wait...it IS a plane! Or is it?

A jumbo jet lands in uninhabited Arizona desert in the middle of the night. A woman is murdered. A plot thickens. But for skydiving instructor and all-around bad boy Ditch Brodie (Charlie Sheen), it's just another day in the office, until she walked through his door. She's Chris Morrow (Nastassja Kinski), seemingly a beautiful everywoman who's determined to go skydiving -- today. She has no experience but trusts Ditch with her life. Up they go after a little bit of practice on the ground, but when Ditch turns his back to ask the pilot about the possibility of another plane in the vicinity, Chris jumps from the aircraft. Her chute never opens, and she plummets to her death on the deck below...or does she? A shocked and horrified Ditch struggles to piece together the mystery, and his investigation is further challenged when a deputy district attorney by the name of Ben Pinkwater (James Gandolfini) shows up to determine whether Ditch may be held responsible for Chris' death in a court of law. But Ditch is determined to sort the mystery out. If Chris faked her death, why? And if she is really dead, why would she kill herself, and what secrets has she left behind? What Ditch will uncover could have consequences far beyond anything he's ever experienced -- or even conceived -- before.

There are two main pieces to the Terminal Velocity puzzle: the skydiving sequences and everything else. "Everything else" can't touch the skydiving sequences. Those are pretty great. In fact, they're more than pretty great. Insanely great, maybe, might be a better way to speak of them. Terminal Velocity's sky-high stunts are the kind of things Action movies are made for. If they were any more awesome, they would be part of a Disney theme park ride, not a motion picture visual. Director Deran Sarafian's (Death Warrant) film doesn't just show people falling and, usually, riding the chute down to safety. No, there's intense action, death-defying stunts, and some real edge-of-the-seat kind of stuff going on here, enough, in fact, that audiences might actually want to sit through "everything else" one more time just to experience all of the aerial stunts all over again (and yes, they even work a little bit better in context than they do merely through scene jumping via the magic of digital home video). The skydiving scenes are nicely filmed, filmed in such a way that it's easy to see, feel, and almost, at times, experience the rush of the fall, the pull of gravity, even the resistance of the chute. The film's climax works in one of the more daring skydiving sequences out there, and even if the rest of the movie this sequence and the others like it support is otherwise fairly meh, Terminal Velocity wins for its heart-pounding skydiving sequences alone.

As for "everything else," well, there's not much to say. "Everything else" means "generic Action movie elements" means bland characters and merely a serviceable story fit for filling in the gaps between the good stuff. Still, "everything else" manages to create just enough suspense, yield a touch of mystery, and serve up a handful of plot twists that will at least keep the viewer engaged, though certainly not to the point that Terminal Velocity's story becomes the stuff of film school classroom discussion. David Twhohy's script serviceably gets the movie from sky to ground and back up again. This script has nothing on his better works, but as noted it does offer enough to label it "competent." The performances are fine, never dazzling but, like the script, suitably competent and satisfying considering the needs of the script's mostly generic heroes and villains. Charlie Sheen looks and sounds the same as he does in most of his movies; it doesn't seem to matter if he's up in the air, in the jungles of Vietnam, or working Wall Street; he simply carries with him the same cadence and approach, and like most actors, he's more a product of his material than he is his acting chops. Nastassja Kinski satisfies as the mysterious dead-or-alive female lead, while a young James Gandolfini appears to have fun in a two-faced part that's little more than an opportunity to get his feet wet in anticipation of the great things to come.

Terminal Velocity Blu-ray, Video Quality

 

Terminal Velocity's 1080p Blu-ray transfer doesn't define catalogue greatness, but Mill Creek's presentation provides an adequate image of a title nearing twenty years of age. Grain is extremely light at times, hard to spot at others, but the film never looks too worked over or smoothed out. Details remain good, though certainly the best the transfer has to offer in terms of facial and clothing intricacies pale next to the finest 1080p images. In fact, clarity isn't quite consistent, and the image goes noticeably soft at times. Colors are even and generally pleasant. Black levels, however, range from displaying evident crush to nicely balanced, though they're often accompanied by a distracting field of noise. The image surprisingly handles the early nighttime fog very well, but troublesome banding does creep in from time to time thereafter. The print yields only minimal wear and tear. This is an upper-end transfer amongst the very low-priced Mill Creek catalogue releases.

Terminal Velocity Blu-ray, Audio Quality

 

Mill Creek's DTS-HD MA 5.1 lossless soundtrack in support of Terminal Velocity delivers a consistently big, involved, cinematic sort of audio presentation. In the film's earliest shots, wind noise gusts about with sufficient immersion, and a plane booms overhead from back to front and low to the ground, the sensation nearly enough to really rattle the listener. Heavy ambient effects impress all the way through. For instance, the rattle and buzz inside the prop plane as heard before Chris leaps to her death(?) impressively places the listener on board. Music is adequately smooth and nicely spaced; a high-octane Rock tune brings quite a bit of raw energy to the soundstage, but not at the expense of clarity. Within chapter six is the most sonically-intense sequence in the film. Gunfire realistically pops from every corner, impacts in the others, and a large explosion rocks the listening area with good bass. Dialogue is smooth and center-focused; no problems there. This track isn't the clearest or the most natural, but it's a fairly exciting, high-yield sonic presentation that does well in pulling the listening audience into the movie.

Terminal Velocity Blu-ray, Special Features and Extras

 

The only supplement to be found on this Blu-ray release of Terminal Velocity is the film's original theatrical trailer (480p, 2:34).

Terminal Velocity Blu-ray, Overall Score and Recommendation

 

Terminal Velocity delivers some thrilling aerial stunt work but otherwise slogs through a fairly routine script. But the movie's hallmark Action scenes are reason enough to watch. The rest of the picture flows nicely enough, even if it's little more than filler and time killer until the movie can get back up into the air. At its core, Terminal Velocity is an amusement park ride come to life, but the long lines are replaced by relatively flat characters and stretches of routine exposition. Still, this is a ride worth taking at least once. Mill Creek's Blu-ray release of Terminal Velocity features adequate video and audio. This bargain-priced disc contains no noteworthy extras. Recommended considering the impulse-buy price point.

• Terminal Velocity 5/15/2012 (Mill Creek) Pre-order

10

Apr 12, 2012