This is a seriously bad film. Everyone concerned must have worked very hard to make it this dreadful. It's a long time since I've seen actors perched on the top of a plastic rock in a studio trying frantically to convince us that they're on the top of a high mountain despite the cheap backdrop that tells us otherwise. The plot was horribly familiar, a group of crooks chasing the missing loot from the robbery that went wrong while a saintly father, who needed a good haircut, tried to save his one surviving daughter from the clutches of the desperados. His youngest daughter was killed falling three feet off the plastic rock right at the start of the film, which gave me the first good laugh of the evening. The actors had terrible dialogue, and did their best to match it with their acting efforts. What saved this dire movie was the fact that it was so unintentionally funny. Strong men were falling to their knees with altitude sickness as they strolled up a gentle slope that I could manage, and so could my old dog. Then, suddenly, they'd be scaling a mountain face with snow on the ground, only to emerge into a flat grassy space with no sign of the snow. A massive avalanche was avoided by one of the characters with a small jump to his left, but then it couldn't have been as bad as it looked because it didn't take a single bush or tree with it as it passed. The father and his daughter were meant to be keeping one step ahead of the gang of crooks at one stage, but ended up about two feet away from them, eyeballing the chief villain through a clump of grasses in a lake. Luckily they were able to duck beneath the water just as his beady eyes lighted on them, and despite some awe-inspiring double takes from the daughter's boyfriend, the villain decided he hadn't seen anything after all. I rather wish I hadn't.
Review of Final Ascent
Final Ascent
(2000 TV Movie)
Such a bad action movie it ends up as a very entertaining comedy
20 April 2001