Vertical Limit

In this high-octane action film, three climbers make stupid decisions at 26,000 feet, en route to the summit of K2, the world's second highest mountain. The climber's peril thus necessitates a rescue, which puts additional people on the mountain and at risk of dying. That's it. The story is thus fairly thin, but the filmmakers insert all kinds of natural and human obstacles, conflict, and difficulties to rev up the action and excitement.

The film's CGI creates compelling tension. We have the illusion of vertical scale, or perspective, which translates into a needed sense of vertigo. The sensation that the characters could, at any moment, fall to their deaths is the film's strength.

The mountain scenery is also nice, although it is sometimes wasted, because of the film's fast pace. Cinematography is quite good. And some of the scene transitions make the film flow really well.

Dialogue seems flat to me. Production design and costumes are adequate. Acting is largely irrelevant.

By far, the biggest flaw is the unrealistic amount of action. In the plot, everything that could go wrong does go wrong, from bad weather to avalanches to exploding nitro to human conflict and discord. It's all a bit much. But, that seems to be a problem inherent to outdoor action films. Directors cram in too much chaos.

Another minus is the background music, which is irritatingly nondescript. For a film set mostly in Asia, I could have wished for more indigenous music which, when combined with the majesty of the mountains, could have added emotional depth and a sense of mystery and awe.

"Vertical Limit" does have an emotional spine to its story, but that is secondary to the super action plot. Viewers who expect well thought out characters, meticulous plotting, or a subtle "theme" will need to look elsewhere. This film is strictly for people who like heavy-duty outdoor action.

While mountaineering is one of the most exhilarating of sports it has produced little good fiction, and few good fictional movies, though there have been some excellent documentaries ('The Man who Skied Down Everest', the Imax 'Everest' film, for example). Somehow, when it comes to fiction, the clichés take over, and this film, with some genuinely gorgeous camera-work and impressive stunts, is full of them. The wealthy megalomaniac determined to conquer K2 at any cost, the climber who lost his nerve when his father was killed who pushes himself into action to save his sister, stuck in a crevass high up the mountain with the moneyed one, the bitter old man of the mountains who is essential to the rescue, the guide who has sold out, It's all there. One does expect some improbability of plot in a film like this, but the thought that someone might cart Pakistani Army liquid nitro-glycerine in back packs to the top of K2 to blast a crevasse open really was a bit much.

Apart from a very attractive opening sequence in Utah (Monument Valley, I think) the film was shot in the New Zealand Alps, with a few clips of the genuine Karkoram Himalaya spliced in. For this viewer, it brought back pleasant memories of climbing in the University holidays around the Southern Alps. But climbing is a dangerous sport; on one trip I was accompanied by four people, all of whom subsequently died in separate climbing accidents (one on Makalu, next to Everest). There is a fair amount of special effects malarky (no-one, not even Temuera Morrison pretending to be Pakistani, would fly an old military helicopter so close to a mountain wall at 21,000 feet), but there are also some genuinely stirring shots.

Unfortunately, the acting for the most part matches the script. Chris Connelly, good at sensitive young men, is wrong for the brother bent on rescue (it's more of a part for Bruce Willis), and Bill Paxton is only moderately menacing as the ruthless Richard Branson-style billionaire. In fact the only decent piece of acting is Scott Glenn's Wick, the veteran with attitude. The'comic' Australian climbing brothers, Ces and Cyril, or whatever their names were, were profoundly embarrassing – I guess Ben Mendelsohn will be hoping no-one will recognise him with a balaclava on his head. There were also lackluster performances from the two female leads, Robin Tunney and Izabella Scorupco. One of them, Scorupco, is an ex-Bond girl ('Goldeneye') – the casting people obviously didn't realise she was going to be spending the entire movie wrapped up in Gore-Tex. There's no sex at high altitude – it's too damned cold and anyway survival takes precedence over procreation.

I think Roger Ebert got it right on this one – a 'B' movie with an 'A' movie budget. There are all sorts of anomalies – the lack of visible water vapour issuing from the climbers, their sprightly behaviour even after hours at 26,000 feet, the use of north wall hammers to attack a rock/ice pitch, the miraculous helicopter piloting – but somehow the magnificence of those great peaks comes through. The worst thing about a movie like this is that it portrays the mountains as hellish, which is far from the truth. What is it the psalm says 'I will lift up mine eyes to the hills, from whence cometh my strength'? Climbing is one thing I have never regretted doing, and it would be a pity if people were put off the sport by stuff like this. Actually I think the people who do attempt peaks like K2 would see this film as preposterous, overblown Hollywood brown smelly stuff, and they'd be right. But there is some nice scenery.

It's not the painfully thin story line, predictable plot or shallow stereotypical characters featured in this movie. It's not even the constant stream of amazingly improbable events, which give you the feeling the director hopelessly underestimated the reasoning abilities of his audience.

What left me disappointed and even a bit annoyed after seeing "Vertical Limit" is the absolute and total failure of this movie to capture any of the real thrill, excitement and hardship involved in scaling the world's second highest mountain.

Books like Jon Krakauers' "Into thin Air" and movies like David Breashears' "Everest" prove that you don't need helicopter rotor blades threatening to dismember climbers or unstable nitroglycerine that explodes if exposed to sunlight to create an exciting story. When Martin Campbell decided to deny the audience any sense of the real technical, physical and emotional challenges of climbing K2, and therefore had to resort to action-movie style heroes, villains and explosions, he left behind a movie too unconvincing, for me to enjoy.

Usually I do not care very much for mountain climbing films as they usually have a very similar plot. This film had plenty of action with Helicopters flying all over the place and horrible snow storms and also entrapment in caves deep under tons of snow and ice. The film starts out with a father, son and daughter adventuring up a steep mountain during a very sunny day and having a wonderful time with each other. Their father was a very experienced climber and all of a sudden a tragic situation happens and a horrible life or death decision had to be made within seconds. There is lots of scary scenes and plenty of explosions and more action than you can handle.

I enjoyed Vertical Limit. One thing I would have done differently, as a director, is to eliminate the explosives. Blowing a hole at the top of the crevass that your friends and family are at the bottom of is folly, and even if you do feel the need to bring explosives (in avalanche country), use something relatively stable, like dynamite.

Dynamite would have been readily available, for it is used to mine Himalayan salt in Pakistan. Certainly, the man with the millions of dollars could have afforded some. The exclusion of explosives from the scenes would have contributed to a more believable Himalayan adventure (think Into Thin Air).

The story line was good, and I appreciated the strong, complex dynamics and connections between the brother and sister, and between the two siblings and the rescue team leader. While Vertical Limit strove to expose the harsh realities of technical climbing (especially at K2), however, it lost some steam by being very lax in re-creating the conditions that would have been met by the climbers, even at K2's Base Camp at 18,645 feet.

No one was even wearing hats at the alcohol-ridden "barbecue" at Base Camp, the night before the climb. It would have been blisteringly cold, between -20 and -50 farenheit. No professional climber would have been drinking alcohol at that time.

On the mountain, in the raging storm, the climbers did not even have the sense to pull the Cord-Locs on their hoods tight: Snow would have accumulated inside their hoods and parkas, then melting. There were some scenes when protective face masks were used, and that was excellent.

Chris O'Donnell's character makes a terrific leap onto a snowy cliff face. I am not entirely certain that the jump would have been possible in real-life, but just maybe. They should have made the jump less-ambitious and more believeable.

Although I am glad that there were not one but two women in the rescue team, in reality, they would have not been allowed: Women just don't have the brute force necessary to haul 200-pound guys down the mountain (or up on a rope).

While I am tempted to say that it is unrealistic that the veteran and renowned ascent team leader and National Geographic photographer (also a highly-experienced climber) could be cajoled into continuing the ascent after the severe storm warning had been issued to them, we have seen bad decisions in the past by real-life alpine team leaders,culminating to disaster.

Although it may seem that I am being very critical of Vertical Limit, my score of 8 shows that I am willing to forgive the sins that Hollywood felt compelled to commit. The strong inter-personal dynamics, memorable characters, strong story line in-general, and clear, bold decision making in the screenplay made this film worth watching. Heroism is always a welcome theme in the movies I watch, and in Vertical Limit, everyone's a hero in his or her own way.

Scott Glen's character as the rescue team leader and sage mountaineer was superb.