Directed by:
Martin CampbellCinematography:
David TattersallComposer:
James Newton HowardCast:
Chris O'Donnell, Robin Tunney, Scott Glenn, Izabella Scorupco, Bill Paxton, Nicholas Lea, Alexander Siddig, Temuera Morrison, Stuart Wilson (more)Plots(1)
Photographer Peter Garrett, an ex-mountain climber who retired from the sport after his father was killed in a climbing accident, finds himself in a challenging position when his sister and her entrepreneurial-minded partner Elliot become trapped in a in a vertical cave atop the perilous K2, the world's second highest mountain. Can Peter find the strength to overcome his emotional blockage to climbing, and if so, does he still have what it takes to scale the mighty mountain to save his sister and her summit crew? (official distributor synopsis)
(more)Reviews (2)
An unintentionally funny piece of crap that gave my diaphragm a hard time. It looks almost like a parody and the fact that it is meant seriously only adds to its comedy. Whether it's scenes with spilled nitroglycerin or a climber hanging on a rock wall, easily coping with an avalanche, but the highlight is the meeting of one of the characters with his frozen wife in a cardboard set, I just couldn't stand it anymore and I was writhing with laughter. I felt like I was watching a sequence of Monthy Python sketches. I would play this comedy to climbers in base-camp before a climb, they would be amused and if they are having a hard time, they could remember Vertical Limit and immediately climb better. Otherwise, O'Donnell is woefully uncharismatic and a bad actor, and the avalanche of all sorts of clichés is really lethal. I like films about climbing, I've always been fascinated by mountains, but this one is a definite NO... And by the way, the opening scene is stolen from an older French film.
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Vertical Limit manages to entertain with solid action (Martin Campbell was, is and will be capable) and annoy with moments where it tries to pretend to be a real drama. And there are so many moments like that! Stallone's Cliffhanger and Eastwood's The Eiger Sanction disappear into the unfathomable heights, while Vertical Limit struggles to dig itself out of base camp.
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