“It’s not just going to be snow. It’s going to be ice and rock.”

Drake’s rating: You can’t prove to me that Chris O’Donnell is not in fact a loaf of ambulatory Wonder Bread

Drake’s review: I’m not sure how Chris O’Donnell ended up as a movie lead. It’s just one of those weird things that happened in the ‘90s, like slap bracelets or the Furby. He just popped up at the beginning of the decade and kept showing up in movies for some reason, probably because producers were too busy feeding their Tamagotchi pets and didn’t even realize that O’Donnell was on their set. And then they got too distracted by their pagers while they were downing Zimas to care, and suddenly O’Donnell was a movie star.

For a little while, at least. But it was mostly bad movies that he starred in, like Batman Forever and Batman & Robin and that toothless, needless version of The Three Musketeers, and then he disappeared from the public eye. OK, he actually went off to TV to star in one of the zillion or so crime dramas that litters the network television landscape, but that’s pretty much the same as simply disappearing. But he didn’t leave the decade without one last shot across the bow, one final starring role to cap off the 1990s.

And as it stands, Vertical Limit is a very ‘90s action movie, full of bombast and accompanied by a stock soundtrack that hits the big notes whenever an explosion or an avalanche is on the way. Which happens with regularity in this flick, so get ready for a steady chorus of blaring horns for the next two hours.

We start off with TRAGEDY, as Peter Garret (O’Donnell) is mountain climbing with his sister, Annie (Robin Tunney, Empire Records), his father, and a few expendable NPCs. Predictably bad things happen, and Peter is forced to cut the line to his father to save himself and his sister. It should be noted that this was his father’s idea, as he knew the line wouldn’t hold all three of them, but Annie is understandably a little bit miffed about dad plunging to his rocky death.

Three years later Peter has foofy hair and a perpetual three-day beard and is working as a photographer near the lower Himalayas in Pakistan. He doesn’t climb anymore (because TRAGEDY), but you know that’s going to change when Annie arrives in the company of Elliot Vaughn (Bill Paxton, Aliens), a man with more dollars than sense who wants to climb the dangerous K2 summit. And because Vertical Limit is nothing if not predictable and lazy, things go wrong when a storm overtakes the team, more NPCs die and Annie, Elliot and their experienced guide Tom McLaren (Nicholas Lea, Xtro II: The Second Encounter) fall down into a crevasse which is immediately covered in show.

Peter isn’t going to give up on his sister, though, and sporadic Morse code communication through their radios spurs him on to form a rescue party consisting primarily of doomed secondary characters and the pretty girl who casually smokes a cigarette near the explosives they’re taking along.

And then legendary but grizzled climber Montgomery Wick (Scott Glenn, The Challenge) shows up to lead the rescue mission, because the producers looked up from their Game Boys and realized that no one would realistically listen to Chris O’Donnell in a dangerous situation, suspension of disbelief be damned.

Wick also has ulterior motives, because his wife died under mysterious circumstances leading Vaughn’s previous attempt at a K2 climb a few years ago, and he still hasn’t found her body. Because what Vertical Limit really needs is a murder mystery to go along with its environmental action and family drama.

This is a very formulaic movie, one that trods along a path already well-worn throughout the decade by flicks like Volcano, Cliffhanger, and Twister. It’s bad, sure, but made worse by its predictability. The action beats are telegraphed from a mile off, unnecessary explosions happen right on cue and characters meet their respective demises in exactly the order you expect. Worst of all, Vertical Limit just feels tired, as if original thought and real effort were just beyond its capabilities, so it’s just going to give minimal effort and hope that you’re dazzled by the late ‘90s CGI.

Trust me, you will not be dazzled by it.

Bill Paxton is wasted here, playing an arrogant one-note billionaire with exactly zero motivation other than “climb mountain.” Robin Tunney doesn’t have much to do, as she’s trapped in a cavern of snow and ice. O’Donnell attempts to look alternately worried and intense, but his range is so lacking that all of his emotions appear roughly the same. Only Scott Glenn comes out relatively unscathed, because his particular brand of insensitive loner works in his favor here.

I have to say that Justin’s tolerance for the charisma vacuum that is O’Donnell, and this bit of cinematic nonsense in particular, is greater than mine as he’s watched Vertical Limit twice. Twice! Man, that really explains some things. I’ve only seen it once, and that was a few months ago, and I still wake up wanting to chew nails.

Justin’s rating: Carrying bombs up mountains makes it that much more of an extreme sport!

Justin’s review: When it seems like you’ve run out of the entertaining ’90s movies — and there are so many of them — the good news is that the early 2000s hosted an overflow of very ’90s flicks. Don’t overlook 2000 and 2001 for some holdouts that have a lot more in common with the previous decade than the current one — such as Vertical Limit.

Originally conceived as a screenplay sequel for Cliffhanger, Vertical Limit ended up taking the climbers-as-heroes thing in a different direction. This wasn’t going to be a man vs. man conflict that just so happened to take place on very tall rocks; this was meant to be a man vs. nature thriller where the mountain was the centerpiece.

Speaking of the ’90s, let’s pull out our discount action hero pack. We’ve got Chris “Fourth Muskateer” O’Donnell, Robin “My hair’s in the sink of you want to glue it” Tunney, Bill “Storm Chaser” Paxton, and Scott “Sub Chaser” Glenn all piling into the car for a ride.

O’Donnell and Tunney are Peter and Annie, sibling climbers who had a falling out after a freak accident ended their father’s life.

When a team led by Annie and Paxton’s arrogant rich adventurer Vaughn get trapped by a vicious storm on the side of K2, the second-highest mountain in the world, it’s up to one fading star and his grizzled man-mascot (Glenn) to mount a rescue mission well above 24,000 feet within 36 hours. Fortunately, the script almost never has them shivering, so they don’t have to worry about the cold or anything.

Unlike Cliffhanger’s more bloody, taut, and quotable action flick, Vertical Limit struggles to make a rescue mission quite as compelling. The inevitable comparison between these two movies highlights how Stallone’s vehicle had incredible cinematography, while this one vacillates between some striking scenes, obvious sets, and stock footage.

That’s why I have a hard time getting invested in this movie, because every time I see O’Donnell and company scaling an obviously-not-K2-mountain looking for the trapped climbers, I think, “You fools! They’re not on the mountains, they’re in Hollywood on a studio lot!”

It’s also been pointed out that the math of this rescue is silly stupid. They end up killing more people than saving, an event that was actually predicted in an earlier scene. I mean, at least Robin Tunney lived to see another day, but that’s poor consolation to the deceased’s families.

Both times I’ve watched Vertical Limit, it’s failed to impress me. It’s a little too long, a little too fakey, and suffers in comparison to Cliffhanger in almost every way. Still, I have to acknowledge that it has a bit of “guilty pleasure” smell to it, which does appeal to some. So maybe it has a chance of climbing into your affections even today.

Intermission!

• That title font is so, so early 2000s
• Every climbing movie has to start with a horrible accident so you develop low-grade anxiety over heights for the next two hours
• Dang that drop is a gut punch
• Dang did not need to see that leg break
• “National Geographic is always welcome. They’re the only people who come here who don’t want to conquer something.”
• Scott Glenn is rocking all the facial hair in the world
• Who’s carting up all of those beer mugs and glasses to base camp?
• This movie is brought to you by The North Face
• Those are cool climbing sunglasses
• Oh no, we’re about to be covered by stock footage of an avalanche!
• Yeah if you’re going to cry, cry OUTSIDE. In a crying zone, presumably.
• It’s Deep Space Nine’s Bashir!
• Never has untying shoes been so tense
• Smoking right next to nitro is a boss move
• “I’m trying to kiss my ass goodbye.”
• “Frankly, I’d rather climb with the sheila.”
• Oh no! The helicopter model is having a hard time flying this high!
• Shoulder wound by helicopter blade is pretty boss
• Theological conversations are best reserved for mountaintop experiences
• STEALTH AVALANCHE
• Yay! It’s finger breaking time!
• Surprise bomb during teatime!
• Oh hai frozen popsicle lady
• “You gonna kill me now?” “Yes.”
• Above 24,000 feet? You can do huge sprints and flying leaps with double pitons across chasms
• Big old bag of blood, that’s pleasant
• Wait, how did they all get down from the mountain so fast?
• Is that a CGI bird? Yes it is. Late ‘90s CGI. Oh boy.
• The FX are SO BAD. The insert FX aren’t even at the right angle.
• Chris trying to show emotion as he cuts dad loose.
• There’s that early 2000s action music.
• Robin Tunney about to fade away as the ‘90s end.
• Bill Paxton, because chasing twisters got dull.
• Scott Glenn as a wrinkled old man missing a whole foot worth of toes.
• Look at all of those potato flakes blowing around!
• This is what I imagine Buffalo looks like in the Winter. And the Summer.
• Hoping for a Snowbeast here…
• Chris & Robin know Morse code, of course, because dad taught it to them. Probably before he died.
• “You’ve never been that high.” Oh, I dunno…
• The snow cave in The Empire Strikes Back looked more realistic. Twenty years earlier.
• Smoking next to the nitro. They are not following demolition safety rules.
• The nitro also has problems being in the sun.
• Leading to EXPLOSIONS. And AVALANCHES.