Snowman's Pass (2004) starring Nicole Eggert, Marc Singer, George Stults, Mike Dopud, Bruce Dawson, Garvin Cross, Joe MacLeod directed by Rex Piano Movie Review

Snowman's Pass (2004)   2/52/52/52/52/5


Nicole Eggert as Diana Pennington in Snowman's Pass (2004)

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What is it about mountain climbing movies, they always seem to start in the same manner with some drama on the mountain top leaving one person dead and another traumatised. It's exactly how "Snowman's Pass" starts as Diana watches her fiancee of just a few minutes fall to his death leaving her, you guessed it, traumatized by the experience. Anyway that is just one of many cliche things which gets served up in "Snowman's Pass" a very weak movie where climbing excitement is short on the ground and double crossing skulduggery borders on being pantomime.

2 years after her fiancee Brian (Garvin Cross) fell to his death in front of her, mountain guide Diana (Nicole Eggert - Devil Winds) still struggles to get over her loss. But she is approached by Curt Seavers (Marc Singer) who says he has some revolutionary new tracking software which he wants to test in secret on the mountain which could discover Brian's body for her and although she doesn't fancy returning to Snowman's pass agrees to guide him and his small team up the mountain. What Diana doesn't realise is that Curt has no intention of trying to find Brian's body but is looking for a spy satellite which fell from the skies and is using Diana to guide him to it.

Marc Singer as Curt Seavers in Snowman's Pass (2004)

To put it simply "Snowman's Pass" feels like it owes a lot to "Cliffhanger" when it comes to the storyline and I am not just on about the cliche opening. Nope what we get is Diana being fooled by a man who says 2 years on from that fateful day that he wants to help her recover her fiancee's missing body but in truth has more nefarious reasons for persuading her to take them up to "Snowman's Pass". That in itself wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't so obvious that this man and his 2 fellow climbers had ulterior motives and far too often twists are telegraphed well in advance. Basically despite the various twists you know that "Snowman's Pass" will end up being about Diana trying to get away from these bad men.

There is little more to it than this and so "Snowman's Pass" becomes a waiting game, waiting for Diana to realise she is being tricked and then waiting for her to have to run from these men before, you guessed it, ending up trapped in a remote weather station hut. Oh we do have the fact that she bonds with Tyler the nice guy computer expert who is drawn into this nefarious mess but that is it.

I suppose in a way you don't really expect much more from a movie which is trying to be an action thriller on a mountain. But what you do expect is some excitement and to be blunt there is almost zero excitement with one mountain slip being the most entertaining moment in the entire movie. This may sound cruel but whilst the various snow top vistas we get are beautiful the rest of the mountain action isn't and ends up incredibly dull. Even the action climax isn't in the least bit exciting and borders on the comical.

What does that leave, well whilst Nicole Eggert is quite pleasant she doesn't for a minute convince me as Diana that she knows how to climb a mountain. And then there is chief villain Curt Seavers with Marc Singer exaggerated performance bordering on the pantomime which can also be said of his heavy Mike Dopud who plays Hugo. To put it simply there isn't a convincing performance in the entire movie with everyone over acting as they try and make more of their dodgy dialogue.

What this all boils down to is that "Snowman's Pass" ends up feeling like a poor imitation of "Cliffhanger" with everything about it telegraphed and far too little mountain climbing drama. Because of this it ends up a very flat movie with only the occasional view of a snowy mountain top making for pleasant viewing.


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