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Overall Rating
  Awesome: 7.81%
Worth A Look: 11.72%
Average: 28.13%
Pretty Bad: 39.06%
Total Crap: 13.28%
9 reviews, 74 user ratings
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| Vertical Limit |
by Brian McKay
"You know, Climbing K-2 just isn't dangerous enough - Let's take some NITRO!"
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This movie does for mountain climbing what "Jaws" did for the water - it makes me want to stay the fuck away from it. Why is everyone trying to make a bigger and better "Cliffhanger", a movie that was mediocre at best?I wanted to really like this movie. It managed to be somewhat exciting without any machine gun fire (although it had a few explosions) and it didn't force a trite "ex boyfriend rushes up the mountain to save ex-girlfriend who he still loves" plot onto the audience, opting for a slightly more original "brother rushes up the mountain to save his estranged sister" plot instead.
The brother and sister in question are Peter and Annie Garrett, played respectively by Chris O'Donnel and Robin Tunney. They are estranged because she partly blames him for the loss of their father in a climbing accident, although it really wasn't poor Peter's fault. Now Peter is sworn off of climbing (kind of like Stallone in "Cliffhanger", what a coincidence) while Annie is a rising star in the climbing circuit. Annie has this new gig, escorting millionaire Elliot Vaughan (Bill Paxton, playing as loveable a cowardly weasel as ever)up K-2 as part of a publicity stunt. Needless to say, the weather turns to shit, and they are trapped in an ice cave after an avalanche wipes out most of their party. Big brother Peter (who just happens to be in the area on an unrelated assignment that week) to the rescue. Sound contrived so far? Oh it is.
Which is not to say that the film isn't visually breathtaking. One disaster after another plagues the climbers, and some of the action sequences will have you on the edge of your seat, from climbers constantly falling (only to be caught by their rope or a teammate at the last second) to men being blown off of a cliff by an avalanche, this film had me saying "holy shit" more than once. Unfortunately, it had me saying "oh yeah, right!" just as often. I expect a film like this to require some suspension of disbelief, but when it requires a suspension in the belief of physics as well, I have to draw the line. Remember how ridiculous the jumping bus in "Speed" looked? Well, you will experience that kind of moment over and over in this film.
There's more than just climbing and narrowly averting disaster in this film, but not much. Aside from the comic relief provided by a pair of aussie brothers who go on the rescue mission, there is the typically brooding Scott Glenn in the role of Montgomery Wick, a famous climber who now pines for his dead wife and searches the mountain for her body, which was never found. Turns out he's looking for more than her body, though, and agrees to lead the rescue attempt with his own hidden agenda. It provides a decent twist, but not an entirely unpredictable one.
The thing that bugs me about this film the most, however, is that while it shows all of the tribulations the rescue party goes through to reach the stranded party, it doesn't show how they managed to get them the fuck down once they find them! Next thing you know, they're back at base camp and all is well again. Maybe they took a flexible flyer down.It's not a bad movie, all in all. It's your fairly competent but standard action fare - Better than "Cliffhanger" or "K-2", but not as good as "The Eiger Sanction".
link directly to this review at http://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=1759&reviewer=258
originally posted: 05/29/01 23:09:29
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USA
08-Dec-2000 (PG-13)
UK
N/A
Australia
21-Dec-2000 (M)
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