Vertical Limit (2000)

When a rock face climb robs “Peter” (Chris O’Donnell) and sister “Annie” (Robin Tunney) of their nobly sacrificing father, rather than abandon their climbing the siblings immerse themselves in ever more dangerous challenges - and few can be more so than the Himalayan K2. With wealthy Americans willing to pay millions of dollars for permits to ascend, this could prove lucrative even if some of them are so reckless as to put everyone’s life at risk on their search for adrenalin. One such expedition is to take “Vaughn” (Bill Paxton) up the mountain but not long after they start the weather turns against them and with an avalanche on their tail, they are lucky to find themselves deep in a crevasse where they can, injured, shelter. Meantime, well of course brother “Peter” is determined to mount a rescue and so turns to veteran mountaineer “Wick” (Scott Glenn) who reluctantly agrees to lead a team to try and save what’s left of the party from their frosty fate. Next thing, thanks to the very accommodating Pakistani military (Roshan Seth) they are equipped with enough nitro glycerine to take ten thousand feet off the height of the thing and are off up on their perilous quest. Now there are some impressive visual effects here and some of the photography of the snow-capped (Kiwi) peaks helps contribute well to an atmosphere that shows just how temperamental and downright hostile nature can be when she gets fed up with interlopers leaving their junk (and their corpses) littering her pristine snow lines. Some of the avalanches look powerful and are made all the more intimidating by the deafening audio that accompanies the movement of these vast quantities of snow and ice. The acting and dialogue, well that’s another matter entirely. O’Donnell is very easy on the eye, but his acting talents are nothing at all to write home about here. Indeed, to be fair, that can be said about just about everyone involved, and every time is saw the curmudgeonly “Wick”, I kept expecting an unkempt David Carradine to emerge. The last fifteen minutes see the action pick up and they just about redeems the rest of it, but the story is fairly weak and laden with baggage that needs a shrink rather than 25,000 feet.

_**A Fun Time but overKILL to the Extreme**_ I had high hopes for this film after seeing the thrilling opening sequence in Monument Valley, Utah; but, alas, it was not to be. THE STORY: A famous female climber gets stuck in an ice cave with two others near the top of K2, the second highest mountain on Earth. Her brother, who has sworn off climbing because of his father's climbing death, has no choice but to assemble a team to rescue the trio. WHAT WORKS: As already mentioned, the opening sequence is excellent, the locations are great (the New Zealand Alps), the story pretty much keeps your attention (until the absurdities really mount up -- pun intended) and both Robin Tunney & Izabella Scorupco are deliciously beautiful. WHAT DOESN'T WORK: As the story continues the believability decreases severely. In fact, the crisis/suspense/action sequences are so EXTREME and strung so close together (especially as the movie proceeds) they tend to make you bust out laughing -- the very OPPOSITE reaction the creators wanted. By the very end the ridiculous overkill made me lose interest in whatever story was supposed to be there. FINAL ANALYSIS: I was hoping for something unexpectedly great like "The Edge," but ended up with a fun but ultimately shallow time-waster. For comparison, "Cliffhanger" is "Apocalypse Now" next to "Vertical Limit." GRADE: C

Some parts were dumb (the nitro bombs for instance) and the CGI not always the best (albeit this was 20 years ago, so some forgiveness) but I liked the cast, Bill Paxton, Robin Tunney and Scott Glenn especially, and thought all in all was an entertaining enough survival-thriller. **3.25/5**