2/4  Vertical Limit Quick Review
This is a great show to watch in a hough surround-sound theater, but the story itself is very mediocre.

2.5/4  Vertical Limit Quick Review
This kind of thrillers/adventures I have a thing for. Yeah, the plot is kind of lame, and the acting is not that good, but I don't remember a hiking story being told like this before. The interaction between groups of characters was good.

2/5 Corny
  by Kona (Emerald City)
Peter (Chris O'Donnell) and Annie (Robin Tunney) are brother and sister who once shared a tragic mountain climbing experience. Since then, Peter has refused to climb but Annie gets lured into climbing K-2 with a novice billionaire. (Of course) they need rescuing and (of course) Peter leads the way.

This movie uses every mountain climbing cliché in the book and is so predictable, it's pathetic. After just minutes we know where the story is going and sure enough, it goes there. There are a few exciting disaster scenes, but even they were by-the-book, right on cue, no surprises.

The Extras feature on the making of the movie was the best part of the DVD. I had assumed the actors were acting in front of blue screens with stock mountain footage in the background, but to my surprise they actually filmed it atop snowy and icy (New Zealand) peaks and the actors did a lot of their own stunts. If I had known that, I might have been more patient with the movie, but it really was a connect-the-dots climbing movie, complete with dastardly businessmen, noble climbers, a surprise avalanche, and deadly crevasses. Disappointing.

2/5 Could have been one of the all-time great action movies
  by James P. Scallon (San Francisco, CA United States)
Vertical Limit could have been a great movie, if only the script had been reworked and reworked again to remove its more ludicrous elements and to replace them with thought provoking dialogue, believable predicaments, and serious character development. For viewers hoping to find an intelligent movie pitting daring yet frail humans against the unforgiving forces of nature, this is not it. The central premise of the movie is excellent. A boorish billionaire bribes and bullies a crack team of mountaineers to lead him to the peak of K2, the second highest peak on Earth, for a publicity stunt with a fixed schedule, in violation of all safety precautions. Disaster strikes, not without warning, and the group is trapped above the "Vertical Limit" with the thin and frigid atmosphere at that extreme altitude rapidly causing their bodies to shut down. A crack team of mountaineers from base camp is recruited for the rescue attempt with the clock ticking. What could be more excitng? With an intelligent script, this movie could have been completely engaging and possibly on the list of all time great action flicks. But, alas, far too often the excitement relies on unnecessary low-to-the-ground helicopter passes, impossible grasps averting (or resulting in) thousand foot plunges to sure annihilation, and to top it all off, nitroglycerine in the backpacks of every member of the rescue team when any other explosive would do. There's a storm on the peak, but not a ripple from the wind in the tents below at base camp. The climbing team is trapped underground, yet the cavern is fully lit. (The nitro, by the way, looks a lot like antifreeze whether it's spilled at a Pakistani military camp or high on the flanks of K2. For some reason, it only explodes on impact when it's most needed for dramatic affect. Otherwise, it can be tossed around like a rag doll, at least in this movie.) The scenery is picturesque and dramatic. Scott Glenn is excellent as an aging mountaineer on a tireless quest to find a member of a long lost climbing party. Bill Paxton makes an excellent billionaire megalomaniac, until he becomes trapped underground with his guides. Chris O'Donnell in the lead is not given enough meaty material to shine and is given too many clichés to deliver to convincingly carry the show. Similary, Robin Tunney and Izabella Scorupco are captive to the script. Setting all that aside, this can be a fun watch. There is just a lot to set aside to really enjoy the view.

2/5 Absurdity Limit
  by D. Burns (Los Gatos, CA United States)
When you think a movie can't possibly get any more asinine, this one does. Amazingly bad script with totally ridiculous action scenes. What do you do when climbers are trapped on a mountain? You try to rescue them by carrying liquid nitro-glycerin up the mountain. And you take three different routes, including one which requires you to leap across a 30 foot span. And there's more idiocy - much, much more. On the positive side, the movie is quite funny (although unintentionally). The only reason I rate this film 2 stars instead of 1 is that the cinematography is actually quite good. The acting was not good, but no actor could have saved this script.

2/5 Don't climb K2 without nitro glycerin
  by John D. Mattson (Nederland, CO)
The intensity of high altitude mountaineering is obviously not exciting enough for the Hollywood mentality, so the plot needed to be thickened. The streets of LA would have been a better scene for this plot, but I did enjoy the cinematography. The characters were also fairly interesting, and I might have enjoyed it more if I didn't understand the sport.Dancing on the Edge of an Endangered Planet

4/5 Great Audio & Visuals
  by 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.