Buy it... if you, like most film score fans, are mesmerized by Trevor Jones' most majestic title themes of noble brass and high strings and seek a robust action score to go with that identity.

Avoid it... if you found nothing attractive in Jones' dominant title theme for Last of the Mohicans, a very close cousin to that of Cliffhanger, and be careful with the 2011 Intrada album unless you can satisfy yourself with an occasionally awkward re-mixing of the score.

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Cliffhanger: (Trevor Jones) One of those guilty pleasures that you often see on late night television with regularity, Cliffhanger showcases the vein-popping Sylvester Stallone as a reluctant, mountain climbing hero who thwarts a stereotypical plot of terrorist hijacking gone awry in a spectacular remote setting. For Stallone, the film represented a return to blockbuster stardom desperately needed at that point in his career. For viewers, the film's campy characteristics and fallacies of logic are more than compensated for by a few key positives; first is John Lithgow's delightfully wicked performance as the treacherous ringleader of the terrorists. Second is the remarkable photography of the peaks on which the story unfolds (shot in the Italian Alps under very challenging circumstances). Finally, Trevor Jones' soaring orchestral score is a prominent aspect of the film's soundscape, standing alone the overall audio mix for extended sequences. Still, while the film landed with a splash in 1993, insurmountable competition from Jurassic Park simultaneously in the theatres caused Cliffhanger to fade somewhat into the ranks of lesser known action blockbusters. And though it was difficult to compete with John Williams' adventurous score as well, Jones was hot at the time. He had just emerged from a disjointed project with Randy Edelman, Last of the Mohicans, which had ironically turned into an incredible success in sales of the album for that score. In fact, the award-nominated Last of the Mohicans would continue to sell so well on CD in the subsequent decade (and almost completely due to Jones' music and not Edelman's) that the immediately following Cliffhanger has been further forced into relative obscurity. Interestingly, with Cliffhanger would come a title theme strikingly similar to that of Last of the Mohicans, possibly too reminiscent in fact for some listeners to tolerate.

Jones has proven in the years since Last of the Mohicans that he is indeed one of the kings of lofty, major-key string themes, and although many of them do indeed sound much alike when you compare them, their incredible sense of majesty often outweighs their faults. For listeners who believe Last of the Mohicans to be sacred, then the thematic overlap could very well ruin the Cliffhanger score in sum (Jones, in all fairness, was requested to write a similar idea by the director), though this would be doing an enormous disservice to the remainder of the latter work, most of which is quite invigorating and harmonically pleasing. Anyone who has seen Cliffhanger will have the title theme imprinted upon their memory for quite some time. Its expansive, melodramatic structure serves two purposes. Obviously, its major-key performances are a perfect fit for the stunning footage of the peaks you witness in the opening sequence. Throughout the film, Jones continues to insert snippets of this magnificent theme whenever a great vista shot is presented. Additionally, it has a tragic element to its strictly-translated minor-key variations, representing the incredible loss that the primary character faces at the outset of the film and his bittersweet return to the same mountains during the terrorists' activities. A lovely string interlude in this theme is rarely heard in the meat of the score, but its appearances in the opening title sequence are not to be missed. The most effective minor-key dramatics with the main theme's primary sequence grace the middle portions of "End Credits." A crisp and expansive recording of the London Philharmonic adds a vibrant sense of importance to this theme and several other major cues in the score. When the tempo is increased in between primary trumpet statements of the idea, Jones inserts an strangely gregarious sequence that hints strongly of James Horner's The Rocketeer (listen for it at about 2:15 in the opening cue). Darker variations of the title theme act as interludes for the tense situations in the plot, as well as an extension of the somewhat downplayed romantic undertones of the story.

A theme for Lithgow's crew of criminals has a twist of Michael Kamen's Die Hard music to it, but Jones takes this harmonic theme through ominously clever rhythmic variations with bold brass tones to match the bad attitude. It occasionally expresses its sinister tones through bass woodwinds as John Williams is fond of doing. This theme is presented fully in "Tolerated Help" and, to a better extent, in the entertaining "Sunset Searching," a delightfully menacing cue (if such a thing can exist). It can also be heard in fragmented forms in "Icy Stream" and "Helicopter Flight." Its own rising interlude sequence, evoking a feeling of mischief, is all-too-infrequent as well. While the thematic merging in the former track is more masterful from a technical standpoint, the "Helicopter Flight" cue is a powerhouse that moves with rambunctious, percussion aided rhythms familiar to Jerry Goldsmith's career (in fact, several parts of this score, including the title theme, would seem to have influenced The Edge) and deliberate brass accents in that rhythm that are a trademark of Alan Silvestri's work. The connections to Goldsmith would continue into "End Credits," which features a middle section that will juggle the thematic ideas with a sensibility of class and instrumentation that Goldsmith fans will appreciate. Jones competently overlaps the primary and villain themes with greater frequency as the score progresses, an expected maneuver but still one of interest. He also has a habit of concluding full statements of the title theme in the latter half of the score with sudden ensemble stingers, which takes some getting accustomed to. The middle sequences of the score, particularly after the crash landing of the terrorist plane, are irregular in their quality. Jones was asked to score practically every moment in the film, so some of the interior sequences feature less than stellar atmospheric material. It is in these passages that the composer applies his synthetic layers. In a cue like "Bats," Jones uses these devices to fill space with uncertainty, and while none of the techniques is particularly offensive (or even substantially dissonant), they add little to the overall score. A seemingly synthetic choral effect in "Frank's Demise" is an exception.

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For the scenes of brutal, almost cartoonish violence in Cliffhanger, there are some obnoxious moments of blaring brass and dissonant shrieks on strings. While the more non-descript cues of treachery and endurance are miles away from the sincerity of a score like Thirteen Days, they fit the simplistic characters of Cliffhanger's plot well enough. In the end, though, there is no doubt that those who will seek this score on album are likely motivated by the memorable title theme. No matter your view of whether or not composers should recycle their own material, Jones' main identity for Cliffhanger stands on its own as a remarkable piece, and an often enjoyable action underscore will maintain your interest in between the theme's statements. On album, the commercial Scotti Bros album of 1993 featured about 51 minutes and fell out of print in the late 1990's. In 2011, Intrada Records issued an expanded edition of 93 minutes, limited to 2,000 copies that sold out within a week. While the commercial product contained all the major highlights, the Intrada offering presents a better balance of action cues. Strangely, however, the mix of the orchestra and synthesizers, which was reportedly redone to some extent for the 2011 album, is sometimes lacking in mid-range depth. Instruments are spread to unnatural channels and the synthetic and percussion overlays seem heavily trained to the left channel. Strings are often underpowered, yielding a disappointingly shallow presentation overall. Parts of the score sound so muted that most of the life is drained completed from the recording. Additionally, the ambience is extremely dry on parts of the Intrada product, another detriment to the scope of the music. Ultimately, Cliffhanger is a solid score worthy of the kind of presentation that Intrada intended to afford, but there are major problems with the mixing of the score on the label's expanded album, so unless you are completely dissatisfied with your copy of the 1993 album, be careful about spending money on the collector's market for the 2011 follow-up. Regardless of the album, Cliffhanger is continued proof that it's a mighty shame that Jones has consciously chosen to limit his assignments in the decades since. ****   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download

Bias Check:

For Trevor Jones reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.78 (in 18 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.5 (in 24,201 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.