VERTICAL LIMIT

2000

This movie has it all... a once-considered-hunky-but now-just-another-mediocre-actor-but-fellow-Bostonian Chris O'Donnell, more lousy acting from Bill Paxton, bad special effects, a toeless Scott Glenn, bad editing, and lots of redundancy. When a team of mountain climbers attempts to climb K2 as a marketing stunt, bad weather leaves them trapped and only a team of even dumber climbers, led by O'Donnell, can rescue them. Did I mention that the rescue team is bringing along a highly unstable explosive? Yeah, that makes sense. There is a lot of action, but it usually involves one or more people hanging over the edge of a cliff as the camera quickly pans up and over them to shoot down and show you JUST HOW FAR a drop it would be. This works once or twice. The only thing that slightly rescues this film is the breathtaking scenery. Even I could do that, though. Just point the camera and press the "on" button. As soon as after the opening scene in this film I was sure that I had hit MY vertical limit (ba dum bum bum).

2 Stars

CDF