Vertical Limit (Special Edition) | 
| Director: Martin Campbell
Actors: Scott Glenn, Chris O'donnell, Bill Paxton, Robin Tunney, Stuart Wilson
Studio: Sony Pictures
Category: DVD
List Price: $14.94
Buy Used: $0.16
You Save: $14.78 (99%)
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Rating:  186 reviews
Sales Rank: 10190
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dvd, Special Edition, Widescreen, Ntsc
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Region: 99
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 124 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.3 x 5 x 0.6
MPN: COLD05066D
ISBN: 0767851285
UPC: 043396031340
EAN: 9780767851282
ASIN: B00003CXQG
Theatrical Release Date: 2000
Release Date: May 22, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
An emotionally-charged action-adventure tale of a retired climber who must launch a treacherous and extraordinary rescue effort up k2 the worlds second highest peak to save his estranged sister and her summit team in a race against time. Studio: Sony Pictures Home Ent Release Date: 09/20/2005 Starring: Chris Odonnell Scott Glenn Run time: 124 minutes Rating: Pg13 Director: Martin Campbell
Amazon.com
Finally, a movie for the REI set! For all those mountain-climbing aficionados who devoured Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air and similar books (as well as the IMAX film Everest), Vertical Limit attempts to translate man-against-the-mountain adventure into compelling, albeit fictional, drama. And while the climbing action is pretty darn breathtaking, somebody forgot to put the brakes on the cliche machine while penning the screenplay. Two siblings (Chris O'Donnell and Robin Tunney) are mentally scarred by a climbing accident in which their father died to save them. She becomes a famous mountain climber (catch that Sports Illustrated cover?); he never climbs again, and becomes a National Geographic photographer. She agrees to accompany a shady billionaire (Bill Paxton) up the icy carapace of K2, the world's second highest mountain; he just happens to be "in the neighborhood" when she starts. After the requisite argument, she sets out, but an avalanche strands her and the billionaire in some kind of underground cavern, and bad weather forbids a daring rescue. It's up to her determined brother to bring her back, along with a ragtag team of rescuers that includes a French-Canadian babe, two wisecracking Aussies, and a crusty old sage (Scott Glenn) who has a few scores to settle. It's easy to pick out the rest of the story from here (though you probably didn't count on that faulty nitroglycerine, now did you?), but Vertical Limit is less about the hackneyed plot than it is about putting its characters into increasingly dangerous situations and hanging them precariously over various mountainsides. It's a credit to director Martin Campbell (GoldenEye) that the impressive action keeps the film moving along past the bordering-on-absurd plot twists. O'Donnell tosses his mane of fluffy hair admirably, but it's still disheartening to see this once-promising actor turning into a pretty-boy stand-in; only Glenn manages to overcome his character's predictability. Mountaineering enthusiasts will recognize a cameo by world-renowned climber Ed Viesturs, who as an actor proves that he's... a very good mountain climber. --Mark Englehart
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| Customer Reviews: Read 181 more reviews...
 Great Audio & Visuals June 29, 2009
Craig Connell (Lockport, NY USA)
When I saw this shortly after it came out on VHS (and later, this DVD), it got high marks just for the spectacular sound alone. It had some of the best rear-speaker sound I had ever heard. It was a showpiece for surround-sound systems at the time.
The movie is interesting with it's main fault being a common one: overdone action at the end. Along the way, however, it has many almost jaw-dropping scenes and some spectacular mountain scenery which still looks great on the sharp DVD transfer. I"m holding off on the Blu-Ray, due to mixed reviews here on the audio and visuals.
The stunt work in here is also incredible. Martin Campbell, the same director who did "The Mask Of Zorro" and "Goldeneye," is good at producing eye-popping action scenes.
How accurate is it concerning mountain-climbing? Not much, according to a few mountain- climbing experts I know told me, and I believe them. Reviewers here seem to agree. All in all, however, especially for someone who doesn't know the art of climbing, this is a far better film than expected, if for nothing else than the great audios and visuals.
 Not worth watching June 18, 2009
K. Feucht (Puyallup, WA United States)
This is a movie about climbing of K2 by a young brash group of climbers. The main characters are a brother and sister whose father and other family members perished in a family rock climb, which demanded that one of the family members cut the rope to save their life, but lead to the death of the other members of the family. All in all, the only value to this film was nice cinemaphotography. It's deficits are plentiful. There are multiple serious climbing inaccuracies, including a) people don't climb 5-6 people per rope on rock b) people don't have major amounts of flesh exposed with light garments high on K2 c) people don't breath easily for long periods of time in the death zone, d) steroids are not the magic fix for HAPE, e) nobody survives for more than an hour deep in a crevasse, as it's just too cold, etc., etc. The film was produced mostly in New Zealand, which was also quite easy to detect. The plot of the story was quite crazy. Subplots, such as the necessity of carrying large quantities of nitroglycerine to the top of K2 in order to rescue their comrades was stupid. Historic climbing ethic was that you go down with your party, and not that you cut yourself loose in order to kill your rope members and save your own skin. I am not sure why such a quality climber like Ed Viestures would allow himself to have multiple cameos in the film with so many gross inadequacies. This film is not worth watching.
Someone needs to cut the rope on the filmmaker June 10, 2009
K. Johnson (Los Angeles, CA)
Where do I even begin? This is just an awful movie.
Scott Glenn's performance is the only really redeeming quality of this movie. Although I have seen Chris O'Donnell do an amazing job in movies like Scent of A Woman, he obviously didn't have dialogue that he believed in, and delivered a so-so performance, (I am faulting the script, not him).
This movie is just plain cheesy. Entirely unbelievable big action scenes make it seem like the filmmakers were just trying to see how many ridiculous situations and explosions they could fit into one movie. Oh, and if cutting the rope once wasn't enough for you, they do it twice in this movie. It is entirely evident that someone heard about the true rope-cutting story of Joe Simpson and Simon Yates in Touching the Void and thought they could capitalize on it. Watch Touching The Void for a true tale of survival and adventure, and a beautiful example of how a well made movie can keep you on the edge of your seat.
Every Hollywood Cliche in the book January 15, 2009
D. Sober (Boston, MA)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I don't even want to give this movie 1 star. I just saw the movie and let me tell you, my eyes hurt from rolling them so many times! SO CLICHE! SO FAKEY! Not believable in the least. I didn't even bother to watch the last 5 minutes of the movie because I want to keep my food down. Don't waste your time even reading the summary on the box! If you see this movie at the video rental place, keep walking!
Far fetched even as 'known' Hollywood fiction! November 5, 2008
Anthony J. Lomenzo (Fort Ann, New York)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I find myself agreeing with reviewer John Gregory that the opening scenes [** see my review on "Touching the Void" on the issue of the real-life 'cutting the rope' matter] were more interesting than the rest of the far-fetched movie!
After the initial scenes, the movie goes down hill [no pun intended] from there. Yeah, I know, it's classic Hollywood fiction and the old "hold the audience" and "build the tension and excitement" kind of thing but hey, even in pure unadulterated 'hold the audience/build the excitement' fiction, and with Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror genre flicks aside, at 'least' make the adventure fiction film and plot half-way believable and don't de facto take the audience for a bunch of folks allegedly looking for a cross between 'Star Wars' and some shoot-em-up video game come to life! Whew!
As for whoever came up with the nitro thing as the "cure" [!?] for solving the crevasse trapped problem or those wild hand/feet moves in a sort of rope and ice axe follies kind of thing [and 'this' after being airlifted to an altitude where, in real life, the whole party would have been finished forthwith since even the best of the best when it comes to high altitude tolerance and endurance MUST first acclimatize and this takes 'weeks', not hours!] , anyway, the nitro 'cure' had to be the icing on the farce, as it were, and I would hardly suggest that this was a movie for, as one reviewer put it, the "REI crowd" [sic] as much as for the "Yo! Gimme some action, man, ANY action, especially those visuals" crowd.
And this too, on the personal side -- the cameo of real-life and world class climber, Doc Ed Viesturs, where his 'Hollywood' scripted line in the movie is scripted along the lines of, "You don't send six to rescue two" [during a mountain storm] yet was it not Doc Viesturs [** Ed holds a DVM credential] ET AL who in real life was there on Everest in '96 when Doc Beck Weathers [** see my review of the Everest 1996 IMAX film] needed the helping hand getting back to C1 for the helicopter rescue attempt! And got it! As for K2 itself, it's hardly literary rhetoric that gives K2 the moniker of 'savage' and/or 'killer' mountain as its most recent victims [11 climbers] tragically demonstrated on August 1, 2008 when, besides climber falls, a serac fell. For those into the climbing community, rock or Alpine versions, catch the 12/08 issue of "Rock and Ice" magazine and the Freddie Wilkinson piece, "Perfect Chaos" [page 56], on the K2 disaster. Good piece. No finger pointing but more so letting the reader make the call.
Doc Tony
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