Advanced Search >
Help Me Search

Movies

Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores

Wide Releases
Now In Theaters

sort by namesort by score

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Limited Releases
Now In Theaters

sort by namesort by score

58 (Untitled)
96 35 Shots of Rum
56 Adam
39 Adventures of Power
66 Afterschool
73 Amreeka
49 Antichrist
76 Baader Meinhof Complex, The
86 Beaches of Agnes, The
71 Big Fan
65 Black Dynamite
76 Bliss
26 Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, The
44 Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
81 Bright Star
76 Broken Embraces
70 Bronson
62 Cloud 9
65 Coco Before Chanel
69 Cold Souls
60 Collapse
82 Cove, The
75 Crude
82 Damned United, The
53 Dare
50 Defamation
67 Departures
70 Earth Days
85 Education, An
55 Endgame
88 Fantastic Mr. Fox
31 Fix
49 Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution
80 Food, Inc.
xx From Mexico with Love
28 Gentlemen Broncos
72 Good Hair
89 Goodbye Solo
63 Horse Boy, The
74 House of the Devil, The
xx How to Seduce Difficult Women
26 I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
70 It Might Get Loud
46 Killing Kasztner
43 Little Traitor, The
34 Looking for Palladin
80 Lorna's Silence
46 Love Hurts
84 Maid, The
45 Mammoth
75 Messenger, The
55 Missing Person, The
59 More Than a Game
34 Motherhood
62 My One and Only
48 New York, I Love You
66 No Impact Man
26 Oh My God
68 Paranormal Activity
68 Paris
79 Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire
73 Red Cliff
69 September Issue, The
79 Serious Man, A
65 Skin
41 Splinterheads
42 Staten Island
50 Stoning of Soraya M., The
58 Storm
82 Sun, The
49 Ten9Eight: Shoot for the Moon
73 That Evening Sun
61 Trucker
49 Turning Green
83 U2 3D
45 Uncertainty
67 Visual Acoustics
32 War on Kids
67 Way We Get By, The
65 Wedding Song, The
xx White on Rice
59 William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe
74 Woman in Berlin, A
43 Women in Trouble
69 Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Vertical Limit

EMAILPRINTColumbia Pictures

Vertical Limit reviews
48
5.1 User Score:

Mixed or average reviews

Based on 29 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 17 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >

Movie Info

Genre(s): Adventure

Written by: Robert King (also story)
Terry Hayes

Directed by: Martin Campbell

Release Date:
Theatrical: December 8, 2000
DVD: May 22, 2001

Running Time: 126 minutes, Color

Origin: USA

Summary

RATING: PG-13 for intense life/death situations and brief strong language

Starring Chris O'Donnell, Bill Paxton, Robin Tunney, Nicholas Lea, Alexander Siddig, Scott Glenn, and Izabella Scorupco

Tale of young climber Peter Garrett (O'Donnell), who must launch a treacherous and extraordinary rescue effort up K2, the world's second highest peak. Confronting both his own limitations and the awesome power of nature' uncontrollable elements, Peter risks his life to save his sister, Annie (Tunney), and her summit team (Paxton and Lea) in a race against time. (Columbia Pictures)

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

80

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Pulls off thrilling stunts that will leave you a sweaty-palmed mess. It's top-tier movie escapism.

80

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Possibly the most suspense-charged mountain-climbing movie ever made.

Read Full Review >
75

Baltimore Sun Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan

OK, so some of the scenes are a sham, but the mountain of suspense and adventure is enough to keep you captivated.

Read Full Review >
75

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Strong performances, particularly by Glenn as the hard-bitten climber with a private agenda, Vertical Limit delivers.

Read Full Review >
75

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Vertical Limit is like riding a roller coaster for two hours. First it's frighteningly exciting. Then it's mind-numbing

Read Full Review >
70

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Vertical Limit, despite its weaknesses, finds the right director in Martin Campbell to energize this high-altitude thriller.

Read Full Review >
69

Mr. Showbiz Larry Terenzi

A shell of a film. It's a stripped-down and blown-out thriller than can only be measured by the sum of its action sequences.

Read Full Review >
67

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

By laying on disasters with a trowel, misses the chance to sweep us up into a more elegant fantasy of primitive mountaintop terror.

Read Full Review >
63

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

If you were forced to judge it simply on its action-movie visual and technical elements, you'd have to count it a roaring success... . But if you lay aside that action and watch the people instead, it's a morass of dimwitted family crises and hack action-movie cliches.

Read Full Review >
63

USA Today Andy Seiler

The action scenes in Vertical Limit take cliffhanging to the highest peaks of excitement. It's a shame the story keeps dragging us down to sea level.

Read Full Review >
63

New York Post Jonathan Foreman

One of the most thrilling - and authentic - mountain-climbing films in recent memory. Unfortunately, it's also burdened by one of those every-line-a-wretched-cliché Hollywood screenplays.

Read Full Review >
60

Newsweek David Ansen

There is one reason, and only one, for anyone to check out Vertical Limit. The hanging-by-a-fingernail mountain-climbing sequences are spectacular.

Read Full Review >
60

Variety Todd McCarthy

Remains exciting as long as it stays on the mountains.

Read Full Review >
50

San Francisco Chronicle Bob Graham

The film is well shot and has titillating action without a single persuasive emotion.

Read Full Review >
50

TV Guide Frank Lovece

Relentless parade of tragedy.

Read Full Review >
50

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

The movie has moments of breathtaking suspense, at least until it lapses into cartoonish implausibility in the second half. With good acting and good dialogue it might actually have been a good picture.

Read Full Review >
50

Film.com Sean Means

Vertical Limit has its share of intrigue, but there ain't no mountain high enough to make O'Donnell look deep.

Read Full Review >
50

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

A climbing thriller whose plot may be on thin ice but whose action sequences are stunning.

Read Full Review >
40

LA Weekly Chuck Wilson

A thriller that, at its best, has the gooney absurdity of an old Saturday-afternoon movie serial.

Read Full Review >
40

Dallas Observer Bill Gallo

Vertical Limit represents another kind of propaganda--namely the current Hollywood notion that the bigger and louder and longer a movie is, the more people will want to see it, even if that means getting numbed before your popcorn's cold.

Read Full Review >
40

Village Voice Michael Atkinson

Vertical Limit's real problem is its digitized sheen. Every shot seems to have been CGI-enhanced, so the movie has an overpasteurized, Velveeta-like glow -- processed movie food.

Read Full Review >
40

Salon.com Charles Taylor

Wants to be a dizzy, precarious thrill ride. Glenn provides the only gravity that doesn't seem dull, literal and earthbound.

Read Full Review >
40

Film.com Robert Horton

So wound up in its own bungee cords, it leaves itself hopelessly tied in knots.

Read Full Review >
38

Boston Globe Jay Carr

Avalanches are nothing compared to the deadening touch of the stereotyping and audience-insulting simplicities in the scenic but brain-dead Vertical Limit.

Read Full Review >
33

Portland Oregonian Kim Morgan

One of the most wearisome "high adrenaline" movies to come along in a while.

Read Full Review >
30

The New York Times A.O. Scott

A shallow yet empty action extravaganza.

Read Full Review >
20

Washington Post Rita Kempley

The characters are as thin as the air at 26,000 feet, and the story as silly as anyone willing to assault K2 in a punishing blizzard.

Read Full Review >
20

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

It's a huge, bloated, hulking movie.

Read Full Review >
20

Chicago Reader Lisa Alspector

This asthma-inducing adventure set on K2 starts out seeming as if its corny storytelling and phony-looking settings were designed to show that it's as much about genre-movie conventions as anything else.

Read Full Review >

What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 5.1 (out of 10) based on 17 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Travis Z. gave it a7:
It was good, regardless of what others may think. even though i dont think, it was stil good. well pretty good.

[Anonymous] gave it a6:
Run of the mill entertainment. Some of the stunts were awesome, though.

Pat C. gave it a 0:
As a participant on many expeditions, including in the Himalayas, I can tell you that the people who made this steaming pile of plop knew absolutely nothing about mountain climbing. Furthermore, it is evident they went out of their way to cut out the tongues of anyone on the set who did. I don't know where to start - it's all bad. Not that people don't do plenty of interesting but stupid things on big mountains (see "Eiger Sanction"), but this is exactly what never occurs on mountains. Never. Hey Kostis, Battlefield Earth was better - it didn't pretend to be good.

Kostis T. gave it a 0:
Only once in my life i have walked out of the cinema in the middle of the movie. This.....film is the worst after battlefield earth.

Chip H. gave it an 8:
Good movie for those who love adventure, climbing and K2 - good acting or not.

Mike C. gave it a 9:
Action, Special Effects, Music, Characters, and Director: all excellent work.

Win I. gave it a 2:
Bad, bad script and acting. Action ok.

Read more user comments >

Popular on CBS sites: SEC Football | NFL | Video Game Cheats | iPhone | Video Game Reviews | Notebooks | Antivirus Software

About CBS Interactive | Jobs | Advertise

© 2009 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. | Privacy Policy (UPDATED) | Terms of Use