Vertige

The basic plot of Vertige is pretty lame and worn off considering that we are talking about a group of five mountain climbers who take an adventurous hike on a mountain path that goes overboard and turns into a fight for survival.

Its like Wrong Turn if you replace the woods with mountains. At first you think it could go a different direction because the first half works pretty well as a kind of adventure movie with mountain climbers. You get some pretty impressive climbing sequences with lines snapping and nice action mixed with beautiful landscape shots and some nice camera-work... as well as a pretty hot female lead actress (although she chose a pretty strange dress for that trip that gives the viewer some pretty nice views of her mountains too). As soon as the movie turns to be a survival horror with some mountain hillbilly maniac who hunts climbers it goes overboard. There is no resolution of the obscure guy hunting the climbers and the flashback sequences about some mishappenings in the life of the female lead who seems to be a doctor are pretty meaningless and cheap.

Vertige is a typical style over substance movie with a giant letdown in the end and a plot that is as paper thin as the clichéd character development. Anyone who has high hopes for another great french horror movie should stay away from this. The action sequences are really good but i doubt thats enough for a feature movie. first turns out closed and on further investigation becomes quite stressful when bridges break and cables burst.

The teenagers Fred (Nicolas Giraud), his girlfriend Karine (Maud Wyler) and their friends Chloe (Fanny Valette), William (Raphaël Lenglet) e Luke (Johan Libéreau) travel to Croatia to climb and hike along the day. They find the starting point closed with rocks but the experienced climber Fred convinces the others, including the coward Luke that has a crush on Chloe and wants to be close to her, to cross the tract climbing the mountain. Along their journey, they realize that the trail is more dangerous than they thought: the rope bridge collapses after their crossing and the handle in the mountain is busted. Fred climbs with Karine to help their friends but he is wounded in a bear trap. Karine uses a rope to bring their friends to the top, but they do not find Fred that has disappeared. When Chloe falls in a hole with a trap, they question what do people hunt in that isolated spot. When they discover the truth, their entertainment turns into a fight to survive.

"Vertige" has a breathless beginning with the adventure of the group of five friends in the Balkans. In the first half of this movie, the plot is very tense and I do not know how far the actors and actresses have climbed or crossed the rope bridge in times of CGI, but the result is effective with excellent scenes and camera work and I was nervous with the situation of the poor guys. Unfortunately the second part of the story is a violent collection of clichés "à la The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and many other sub-products of the slash genre. Luke is an annoying character and the final decision of Chloe with the fate of Anton is simply ridiculous. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Vertigem" ("Vertigo")

I m a newbie to Via Ferrata (a sport involves trekking n climbing all along a steel cable etc) and by coincidence I recalled myself earlier today about this movie, and so I watched it again. And I can confirm now that it's my newbie sport.

I've never been to Croatia. How beautiful is the scene! And their climbing gears are realistic. In real lives, not every climber has Olympic gears and handsome like Keanu Reeves.

And the rest of the story is pretty cool n normal. I don't need to say anything about the plot and u can readily figure it out. Yeah typical slasher type. I still don't understand why climbers are not armed with knives. Not even Gerber or Victotinox??? How can u go for a climbing n trekking without a knife? And why everyone in slasher movies don't use a baton?

Anyway, I think this movie can give u one and a half hour of fun. Not really a thriller, but still fun to watch.

Enjoy!

Another french thriller, with a group of people getting themselves into trouble. Of course some decisions they make, are really bad and the peril they find themselves in, will divide them (more or less and no, no pun intended).

But what makes this worth-while are the characters and the actors portraying them. You have quite some different people and the tension in the group helps the movie move along. Which is of course necessary with a movie like this. It's not that you will really like them, but they are different personalities and everybody has at least one scene he/she can shine.

Another thing that I would like to see (maybe in the inevitable American Remake?): The movie in 3-D. There were quite a few scenes, that would have made sense in 3-D, were even the "flat" version looked "3-D-ish" ... At least that's how it felt for me :o)

What is it with France lately. Really, they are making flicks I really like. I remember a time when they only made blah blah movies. If you have seen The Descent then this one is one you are going to like, only they don't descent but they climb. A bunch of friends are out for a hike and by doing that they would like to climb some mountains. But they are unlucky. The pass to the mountains is closed but hey, it's a horror so they ignore it and start climbing. The shots made while climbing are fabulous. If you have fear of heights than you will have it in some shots. But of course something goes wrong. They are making too many risks and happen to become isolated on a rock. And from there on the f lick really starts. I can only tell you that it's going to rock (what's in a name) hard and typical for a french movie there is no happy ending. The blood flows frequently and sometimes even gory. The movie also is here and there really brutal. I just can understand why nobody is talking about this flick. It's just great, the only thing I don't get is the flashes our main actress gets from a hospital. But after all, this one is straight in your face...another gem from France