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| Source: rec.art.movies.reviews newsgroup | | Rating: 3
| I must confess that I am vertically challenged, meaning that when I peer down a deep crevasse, my palms get sweaty and my knees go weak. So, despite its inherent implausibility, this suspenseful excursion into mountain-climbing had my heart pounding - but it was more my acrophobia than the cliffhanger by writers Robert King and Terry Hayes and director Martin Campbell ("The Mask of Zorro"). Lifting liberally from "K2," "Wages of Fear" and the IMAX film "Everest," the story begins with high drama on a cliff in Moab, Utah, where Peter Garrett (Chris O'Donnell) and sister Annie (Robin Tunney) survive a rock-climbing accident that costs the life of their father (Stuart Wilson). Flash forward several years: Peter has traded his carabiners for cameras, photographing snow leopards in the Himalayas for National Geographic, while Annie, now a hotshot mountaineer, has joined with another expert (Nicholas Lea) to lead Elliot Vaughn (Bill Paxton), a millionaire entrepreneur - think Richard Branson, to the summit of the world's second highest peak, a commercial stunt perfectly timed coincide with a fly-over of a plane from his new airline. But when they're trapped in a cavern by an avalanche with just 36 hours to live, Peter assembles his own motley team, led by a Jeremiah Johnson-like recluse (Scott Glenn), to lug canisters of nitroglycerin up to blast through and rescue them.
The outdoor scenes are quite realistic and cinematically spectacular, but the stereotypical characterizations are mundane and mediocre. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, "Vertical Limit" is a dizzying 6. The title refers to the high, oxygen-deprived altitude of 26,000 feet above sea level, where the human body cannot survive for long.
By : Susan Granger
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| | Source: rec.art.movies.reviews newsgroup | | Rating: 3
| After suffering through an airline showing of The Perfect Storm, I could think of no better way to spend the evening than with another Man vs. Nature story in 2000's take on the genre, Vertical Limit.
As the thrill-packed trailer might already have cued you, this is an action-filled mountaineering movie, with Chris O'Donnell as Peter Garrett, the unlikely hero trying to save his stranded sister Annie (Robin Tunney) from certain death atop K2, the second-highest place on earth. How'd she get there? Glad you asked... three years after a family tragedy sends Annie on a perpetual climbing quest and Peter grounded on earth, the siblings meet up again at the base of K2, where a Texas billionaire (Bill Paxton) is ascending the peak as a publicity stunt with Annie in tow. Naturally, we learn you can't mess with Mother Nature for profit, and the climbing team ends up stuck in a crevasse only a few hundred feet from the summit -- beaten up, but alive. Barely.
Peter is forced to climb again -- even though he's sworn it off, they suck him back in (it's Cliffhanger by way of The Godfather) for the noble cause of saving sis. After recruiting resident weirdo/chip-on-his-shoulder-character Montgomery Wick (Scott Glenn) and some other local rabble, it's a race against time to save the smarmy billionaire and/or the innocent girl. Wonder who'll get saved, dontcha?
Oddly, Vertical Limit has very little going against it... and very little in its favor. So much of the film feels familiar, drawn from Cliffhanger (though it desperately tries to avoid that comparison, but fails) -- from the setting to the hokey jokes drawn from yesterday's e-mail lists to some rather obvious plotting. We've even seen Paxton take on the elements before (in Twister). That he's the bad guy here doesn't seem to make much difference to the picture's originality. The movie isn't bad by any stretch, but it's just so plain that it will find a rough time attracting a thrill-seeking audience on a crowded holiday weekend.
About all that is worth noting here is the attempt at remaking the boy next door, Chris O'Donnell, as an action star. It worked for Will Smith, right? O'Donnell, and I love the guy to death, is such a cute little fella that you can totally buy him as Robin Tunney's brother, if only Robin Tunney lived in Poughkeepsie and her cat was stuck in a tree and, well, Chris had to climb the daunting 15 feet up there to get it. But O'Donnell at 26,000 feet is a contrivance that I doubt anyone is going to buy, despite throwing the poor guy into way-over-the-top action scenarios (you've seen the jumping-over-the-chasm clip by now), all of which come out of nowhere as a platform for him to strut upon. Sorry Chris, get thee back to Circle of Friends.
Overall, the movie is capably directed, poorly edited, and acted with gusto. Aside from this, it bears mention that Vertical Limit is extremely (and surprisingly) gruesome and far too long, with too many side stories and too few that don't suddenly end with an avalanche (seriously). Whether you like the movie or not, one thing's for sure: After seeing Vertical Limit's spine-tingling opening, you won't be in any hurry to rush up your local cliff-face. Hell, I'm even trying to keep away from the stairs.
By : Christopher Null
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