I saw Vertical Limit in the theater with my siblings on a night out. It being the compromise movie, I have to admit that I was not in the pro-Vertical Limit sect, so I would warn you to take my review with a grain of salt.

The opening shot of the movie is of a computer-generated hawk flying through the American Southwest. This was just a hint at the caliber of the special effects in this movie. Do you remember the 80’s movies where they used blue screens? The slight glow that you could see around the edge of the person or object, the way the lighting never seemed quite right? Well this movie was just like that. I don’t require great special effects in my movies, but if they are going to be as thread-bare story wise as this one was, than I expect that they should make it up in the special effects column. This movie did not.
I was impressed by the opening scene’s lack of a typical suspense movie’s white washed morals. I was actually optimistic for the first 10 minutes. They played around with what sacrifices had to be made in order to save people’s lives. They played around with the Pakistan-India situation, which was very impressive. As soon as they reached K-2 however the story fell into a normal pattern of the bad guy (there was practically neon signs saying which one that was), the victim, the hero, and the experienced outsider. There was no character development, no real character interaction, nothing to keep my mind active.

The movie tried to set up a number of situations where someone had to be sacrificed to save the others. Unfortunately these were not written well, and after the 3rd or 4th one, I just got bored with the idea. They weren’t interesting, they weren’t compelling, the suspense was just non-existent by the end.

This movie wasn’t worth the time or money I spent on it. It wouldn’t be worth renting. By the end of the movie half the theater was either laughing or talking. Nothing was done well enough to impress me. The special effects were below-par, the story, aside from the first 10 minutes, was cookie-cutter and extremely improbable, and the acting was not all that impressive (not that they had much to work with). If you wish to head my advice, do not go and see this movie, don’t even rent it, it isn’t worth your time.


Recommended:
No

Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older