Vertical Limit Review
by Shannon Patrick Sullivan (shannon AT morgan DOT ucs DOT mun DOT ca)December 22nd, 2000
VERTICAL LIMIT (2000) / * 1/2
Directed by Martin Campbell. Screenplay by Robert King and Terry Hayes, from a story by King. Starring Chris O'Donnell, Robin Tunney, Bill Paxton. Running time: 126 minutes. Rated AA by the MFCB. Reviewed on December 16th, 2000.
By SHANNON PATRICK SULLIVAN
I can remember clearly the moment I knew "Vertical Limit" was going to be a disappointment. Chris O'Donnell walks through a camp at the base of K2, the world's second tallest mountain. Another climber, played by Izabella Scorupco, spots O'Donnell. And that's when The Look transpires between them. They look, and they look, and they look. So artificial and transparent is the scene that it would have worked better had Scorupco been wearing a big sign around her neck reading "O'Donnell's Love Interest" -- at least that would have been worth a chuckle.
But "Vertical Limit" is short on imagination, and long on predictability and shallowness. It is populated by characters into whom very little thought has obviously been invested; they exist purely to fill their roles in the paper-thin plot and, once they have served this role, they are dispensed with, one way or another. That's how you know that, inevitably, Scorupco and O'Donnell will end up together. Or consider the mountaineer Skip (Robert Taylor). His purpose in "Vertical Limit" is to use his status at the K2 camp to goad others into joining O'Donnell on a rescue mission. This accomplished, an arbitrary whim of the story shunts him out of the action, and he practically vanishes from the screen.
No more inventive are the plot twists, most of which hinge on the canisters of nitroglycerine the characters carry with them as they speedily ascend K2. It's bad enough that the explosive force of the nitro seems to vary depending on the needs of the plot (at one point, an entire crateful barely destroys a shed; later, a single canister nearly devastates a mountainside). It's even worse that the stuff seems to survive any amount of jostling, unless the story demands that it suddenly become a peril. But the sheer stupidity of the characters around it -- leaving a crate, which had been carefully stowed away, open in the sunshine for no good reason; or, later, sitting five feet away from it when they know there's a good chance it might explode -- is positively criminal.
To be fair, there are some good, tense moments. Mountaineering is an extremely hazardous sport, and "Vertical Limit" effectively conveys the many disasters which can befall even the most experienced climber. One of the best scenes in the movie sees Scorupco trying to save a fellow mountaineer, who is clinging by his pickaxe to the edge of a snowy ledge. As Scorupco edges out toward him, the ledge slowly starts to break away, threatening to pitch them both into the abyss beyond. Similarly, a scene where O'Donnell jumps a wide chasm and barely manages to hook himself into the opposite mountain face is genuinely exciting (even if, in reality, he probably would have torn his shoulders from their sockets).
But the dangers become too repetitive, too quickly. There's only so many times a yawning chasm, an incipient avalanche, or the ubiquitous nitroglycerine can be brought into play and still make the audience anxious. Director Martin Campbell ("Goldeneye", "The Mask Of Zorro") simply doesn't find a way to make each danger seem new and rivetting.
Of course, it's hard to expect much from a movie which borrows from Sylvester Stallone's "Cliffhanger" from the word go. O'Donnell plays Peter Garrett, a climber along with his sister Annie (Robin Tunney) and father Royce (Stuart Wilson). While scaling a sheer cliff face, the ineptitude of a couple of novice mountaineers puts the Garrett family in jeopardy, hanging from a single carabiner. Royce, who is on the bottom, tells Peter to cut him loose, since he knows the carabiner can't support the weight of all three of them. Reluctantly, Peter does so; in one of the movie's most gratuitous scenes, we then see Royce's body thud to the ground far below.
Three years later, Peter is a photographer for the National Geographic Society. He and Annie -- now a world-renowned speed climber -- are no longer on speaking terms, because she blames Peter for their father's death. By coincidence, Peter ends up in the vicinity of K2 at the same time as Annie, who is helping billionaire Elliott Vaughn (Bill Paxton) scale the peak as part of a publicity gimmick. Vaughn pretends that K2 expert Tom McLaren (Nicholas Lea) is in charge of the ascent, but when bad weather hits and Tom wants to turn back, Vaughn goads him into continuing on. Soon, the party is hit by a ferocious avalanche; everyone is killed except Vaughn, Annie and Tom, who fall into a crevasse. This leaves Peter to mount a desperate mission to save the trio before thirty-six hours pass and they all die from pulmonary edema.
Beyond this point, "Vertical Limit" transpires in typical disaster-movie fashion: a variety of supporting characters are introduced, only to be killed off one by one to show how truly fearsome the situation is. There is a villain, of course, and there is an old eccentric (Scott Glenn) who proves to be the key to the rescue mission, despite having a hidden agenda of his own. It is clear that scriptwriters Robert King and Terry Hayes have lifted this one step-by-step from "Screenplays For Dummies" -- there's not a single plot point you won't see coming a mile away.
Even worse, King and Hayes demonstrate no flair whatsoever for dialogue. "Vertical Limit" is full of overwrought, scarcely believable passages. There is precisely one good line in the entire film -- Taylor's description of Scorupco -- and even that probably won't have as much meaning for audiences outside of Canada.
Campbell does at least take good advantage of the tremendous Asian landscape; "Vertical Limit" is breathtaking visually, if in no other respects. But this is scarcely enough to save the movie as a whole. By the time the first wave of snow comes thundering down the mountainside, I found myself wishing it would sweep me out of the theatre, too.
Copyright © 2000 Shannon Patrick Sullivan.
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_______________________________________________________________________ / Shannon Patrick Sullivan | "We are all in the gutter, but some of us \ | [email protected] | are looking at the stars." - Oscar Wilde | \___________________________|__________________________________________/ | Popcorn Gallery Movie Reviews www.physics.mun.ca/~sps/movies.html | | Doctor Who: A Brief History of Time (Travel) /drwho.html |
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