When I first saw the title Vertical Limit, my first thought was that it was movie about the height of arousal one achieves when staring at Patrick Swayze. Of course I laughed out loud at this notion, because there is no limit to the ecstasy that Mr. Swayze delivers to an individuals errogenous zones. How silly of me.

Vertical Limit, however is a movie which involves excitment and adventure on K2, one of the largest mountains in the world! What a total pile of bullshit. Man I didn't even buy that and I just wrote it 10 seconds ago. Vertical Limit is really stupid. The movie has no point other than to setup a bunch of retarded assholes in near death situations, and provide a multitude of scenarios in which to kill said assholes. Everyone dies in this mother fucker, which is perhaps one of it's more endearing qualities. Also, our friend and lover Fletch has taken a sabbatical to the lovely mountains of Boulder, Colorado this week. In his honor I've decided to celebrate his journey through the art of film.....films specifically dedicated to the mountains, snow, skiing, and all the rest of the crap that draws dipshits like Fletch to this poorly oxygeniated, ass nugget of a town called Boulder. Yeah I'm sure it's great, go smoke your dope and ski you fucking hippies.

Vertical Limit starts off with a bang, or a splat rather, as Peter (Chris O'Donnell of Batman and Robin fame) and Annie (Robin Tunney...why am I even mentioning her name?) Garret's Father plummets to his death while mountain climbing with his kids. Peter is forced to cut his father's line at his behest, because the rope can't hold all three of them....so he does....and Mr. Garrett dies. Annie of course, hates Peter because he listened to his dad and killed him, and this theme will continue throughout the movie....Annie is a dickhead anyway.

Fast forward a few years, and Annie has become one of the world's best mountain climbers and his hired by Airline owner and millionaire Elliot Vaughn (played by Bill Paxton, who is the Ironside Agenda winner in this one) to lead him and his team to the top of K2 as part of a marketing stunt. Can you already see where this is going? Annie leads Vaughn and the team to doom ( a huge Avalanche and storm, and probably ninjas and dragons assault the climbers)....which is a the bottom of an ice cavern where she, Vaugh, and other guide Tom McLaren wait to die.....unless....brother Peter can save the day!

Peter of course hasn't really done much climbing since his father's death.... yes he's followed the path of the pussy much like Maverick in every Tom Cruise movie. Give up, quit, then rebound to show everyone you still got it YEAH SUPER! Peter then organizes a team of rescuers to climb K2 along with Montgomery Wick (played by Scott Glenn....he's kind of the Ben Kenobi of the mountain, who never smiles, and is basically a fucking asshole the entire film....he's bitter because he wants to find his wife, who died somewhere on K2 years before....but really who cares).

The best part of Vertical Limit is without question Bill Paxton as Elliot Vaughn. His character is such an asshole he convinces the other dying climber in the cavern not to take there share of the Atrophine (or some other life saving drug or device mountain climbers use..... I have a great mountain climbing life saving device too.... it's called don't climb fucking mountains) because they are going to die anyway, and they should give it to him instead since he has a better chance of surviving. It's classic. He's so openly a dick to everyone and they all buy into it. Really he saves this movie, but not so much that is doesn't remain a bad movie.

The rest of Vertical Limit involves getting to know a parade of characters and then watching them die in spectacular fashion. Frankly the complete disregard for human life in this epic is outstanding. I believe 9 people travel to the top of K2 to save 3, and 2 make it, and bring back 1. I guess I just fucked up the ending for you. Well not really, you don't know who makes out alive, so it's still worth watching.

Scott Glenn kills Bill Paxton.

Hamlin Grade: 4.5

Timothy Dalton is the one true James Bond,
pat