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Vertical Limit (2000)

Rate: 2
Viewed: 12/08

VertL
12/08: I remember seeing Vertical Limit in 2000 when it came out on videotape and I couldn't stop laughing at the preposterousness of the action scenes.

Now, I'm just bored to sleep. It's too long and lacks the Stallone effect which made Cliffhanger so good for an adventurous climbing picture. The worst part is the number of dramatic moments. Instead of three or four in an ordinary picture, Vertical Limit manages to go for between thirty and forty.

Pretty soon, the race is on as each scene, no matter how impossible physics is, tries to top the last one to be the most dramatic of them all. The action is too cheesy, and the cast has done a great job of turning in piss-poor performances.

When the entrepreneur said he wanted to be filmed atop K2 with a couple of planes flying overhead, wouldn't it be easier to accomplish the same thing on a small but safe mountain or in front of the green screen? I'm sure nobody will know the difference. He can always pay the big bucks to turn the lie into truth.

The rescue mission seems selfish because four people died in the process to save one life: the sister of an enterpreuner who originated the whole thing. Montgomery Wick says that, at 24,000 feet, the vertical limit has been officially reached and anyone above it is already dying. I wonder if the apt term should be *drum roll* "horizontal limit."

Comical is how fake the snow looks and how nobody is breathing air visibly in the cold. Instead of nitroglycerin, why not sticks of dynamite? That Chris O'Donnell's character must be the greatest long jumper in the universe after making the leap from one cliff to another through the thin air.

All in all, Vertical Limit is a bad, bad movie that should be ditched in favor of Cliffhanger.