Intermission: 'Vertical Limit' heavy on action, special effects

"Vertical Limit"

Directed by: Martin Campbell

Starring: Chris O'Donnell, Bill Paxton, Robin Tunney, Scott Glenn

Rated: PG-13

In 1993, I saw and reviewed "Alive," in which a group of young soccer players resort to cannibalism after a plane crash. As an afraid-of-flying vegetarian, that film had a lot to offer in making me uneasy.

As a lifelong sufferer of acrophobia (that's a pathological fear of heights), Martin Campbell's latest film, "Vertical Limit," elicited much of the same queasy response. The stunts and cinematography here will no doubt cause a bit of vertigo in nearly every viewer. At the same time they are the main reasons to see this film, a tried-and-true piece of movie escapism.

While director Campbell says that the viewer can "forget the mountain, forget the snow ... the film is about relationships and family ...," he's suffering from wishful thinking. Essentially a B movie with a huge budget, the plot is pedestrian, the dialogue offers nothing special and the ending is a foregone conclusion. But for sheer thrills and spills this season, it's either "Vertical Limit" or trying to find a parking space at Bass Pro Shops.

As the film opens, Peter Garrett (Chris O'Donnell), his sister Annie (Robin Tunney) and their father are doing a little recreational climbing up a sheer rock face in Utah. When things go awry, Dad realizes that unless he is cut loose from the tether, all three of them will surely die. He convinces Peter to cut the line.

Jump ahead three years. Peter has given up climbing (he gets the "Now You're Thinking!" award from me for that) and has taken a job as a photographer for National Geographic. His relationship with Annie, who is now a famous climber, has been fractured after the incident three years earlier. She has held to the belief that all three of them could have made it and Peter's action, albeit at their father's request, was unnecessary.

Fate has found the brother and sister in the same part of the world. Annie has hired on with a megalomaniac Texas billionaire who is going to climb the peak K2 as a publicity stunt to launch his new airline. Bill Paxton brings a nice touch to the role of Elliot Vaughn. He's goofy and likable, but we know there's evil lurking where his heart should be.

Vaughn is on a tight schedule, and the fact that the weather may be turning ugly doesn't lessen his determination. He takes off up K2 with Annie and Tom McLaren, a well-respected guide who's earning a cool million for the trip.

At about 25,000 feet, the weather gets completely unbearable, and Tom, who is ostensibly the head of the expedition, insists they turn back. Vaughn will have none of it and forges ahead. For a few minutes anyway. Then the trio fall through the ice into an inescapable crevasse. At this altitude and temperature, they have less than a day and a half before pulmonary edema will set in, essentially drowning them in their own bodily fluids.

When Peter finds out that his sister is trapped, he organizes a team of six climbers, including the gruff and legendary Montgomery Wick (Scott Glenn) who has some issues of his own with Elliot Vaughn.

The crew also takes along and this is where one has no doubts we're dealing with a classic B picture three canisters of nitroglycerin! Now I'm no chemical genius but the thought of lugging the most volatile explosive on Earth up the slippery slope of a mountain like K2 seems like a really bad idea. Or one you'd see in a classic B film.

As you might guess, little good comes of the nitro idea, and a few expendable characters do their duty and are summarily expended.

While Peter and the rest of the crew draw ever closer, we learn the depths to which Vaughn will go to survive. We also learn why Wick is so intent on finding him and the nature of the score to be settled.

Plot aside, "Vertical Limit" is really quite breathtaking to behold. The special effects and stunt work mesh nicely and there were many times I had to close my eyes for a moment or two. Campbell, who directed "GoldenEye" and "Mask of Zorro" has an understanding of this kind of movie making. For sheer action and escapism, this is the film of the season.

"Vertical Limit" is now playing at Campbell 16 Cine, Battlefield Mall 6 and Town and Country 6.

(Jim Wunderle works at Associated Video Producers and is a Springfield free-lance writer and musician.)