Vertical Limit review
Originally published on Dooyoo.co.uk
Despite some poor critical reviews regarding the plot and acting, I thought Vertical Limit was great. This is an action packed adventure film set on K-2, which is the second highest mountain in the world and one of the toughest peaks to climb.
I could write a long review littered with facts about K-2, who directed and acted in the film and what they’d done before etc. To be honest, all you need to know about the plot is that it involves a group of people trying to rescue another group of people on K-2. The weather is notoriously fickle and dangerous, and as you would expect, the rescue mission is not textbook stuff. There are emotional ties between some of the people trapped and some of the rescuers, which give an extra dimension to the tension.
The undisputed stars of this film are the mountain scenery and the edge-of-seat action. The opening scene is a perfect vehicle for setting the agenda. It manages to quickly establish the relationship and subsequent emotional baggage between the two main characters, which will carry through to the end of the film.
They also give us a quick injection of adrenaline and drama. We witness a situation where a climber has just seconds to make a life and death decision. I immediately found myself transported into the heart of that excruciating dilemma. The tension created by this situation was powerful and very tense. I also found it surprisingly thought provoking in the sense that afterwards, I found myself thinking how devastating that must have been for the characters involved.
This type of situation can genuinely happen in mountaineering and the choice that had to be made here, has had to be made by real people. Some reviews have described the exact nature of this dilemma, which unnecessarily weakens the impact for viewers.
I had seen the trailer for Vertical Limit in the cinema and thought it looked stunning. It promised a film packed with edge-of-seat action and it does deliver that promise. It is a high budget spectacular. The scenery in this film is truly awesome. Much of it was actually shot on Mount Cook in New Zealand as well as K-2 itself, which is situated in Pakistan, adjacent to the Chinese and close to the Indian borders. The sun shines throughout much of the film showing the vivid blue, grey and white mountain scenery in all its true glory. The cinematography is inspiring and I got a true insight into what must compel so many people to risk their lives to be there amongst the dramatic beauty of these mountain ranges.
If fantastic action and breath-taking mountain-scapes aren’t enough to satisfy, if plot and acting are paramount to you, then there’s a chance you could be disappointed. If you’ve seen the trailer, and think the film looks good then trust your judgment on this one. I’m confident you should like it.
There aren’t too many variations of death-defying situations that can be used on a mountain but Vertical Limit manages to exploit them all. There is one scene in particular where the camera takes us with a climber, cascading down the mountain and straight off the precipice. It was so realistic I had to grab my seat. A woman next to me gasped as she plonked her head onto her partners shoulder for the umpteenth time.
There is a healthy sprinkling of humour in the film and one or two genuine shocks. There’s a reasonable character development twist too. Many of the stunts are breath taking, and some parts occasionally drew mass reactions from the totally packed cinema. To me, the storyline is more than adequate to fend off accusations of being a total dead weight. The same goes to the acting, which is not likely to win awards, but gives way respectfully to the action.
Admittedly, it has implausibility and takes liberties, but I became so engrossed in the film that I didn’t notice most of them at the time. Some of the dramatic impact is slightly diluted toward the end because the climber hanging over precipice and life-or-death dilemma is used maybe just once too often. I think we should cut them some slack though, and overlook these liberties in favour of the brilliant action.
Written by Andy(ArT)Trigg on April 14th, 2008 with
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