The plot of this film is a load of tosh that occurs in a logic vacuum. Few would dispute this. Experienced climbers do things that I wouldn't expect rookies to do. Actually every character in this does the stupid thing at most opportunities. Having said that, movies like this are made to appeal to audiences who have never climbed a mountain in their lives and just want to see explosions and people making death defying leaps (even if there is no reason to make them).
Bell end Texas Billionaire Elliott Vaughn (the late Bill Paxton in a rare villainous role) tried and failed to climb K2 4 years before the events of the film. Something went wrong and people ended up dead, with Elliott surviving. Leader of the doomed expedition was Mayama Wick, who we later learn was left for dead on the mountain by Vaughn who had stolen her Dax needles to prolong his own survival. Her husband Montgomery (Scott Glenn), a master climber, goes to the base camp every climbing season to search for her body and confirm his suspicions that Vaughn was responsible for her death. While this fun is going on, Wick's old climbing buddy Royce Garrett dies in an accident while climbing with his son Peter (Chris O'Donnell) and daughter Annie (Robbin Tunney). Peter is forced to cut the rope to prevent his father's weight from pulling them all off a cliff face.
As fate would happen, Vaughn returns to the mountain for Round 2 and gets Annie to assist him on his trek at the same time that Peter randomly visits base camp. Turns out this climb is part of a publicity stunt by Vaughn who has just opened an airline and wants to wave at the inaugural flight as it flies over the mountain. Now common sense will tell you that anyone who would agree to lead an expedition like this would be the worst person possible to lead an expedition: enter Tom McClaren (Nicolas Lea) who will show us how correct that thinking is.
At 24'000 feet and a 30% chance of weather coming in McLaren's not going to take control and explain that 30% chance of death is far too high to continue. Nope, he'll be manipulated by Vaughn, not once but twice, into continuing. By the time he does turn around they are walking into a blizzard. Annie falls into a cavern, an avalanche then ensues, and Annie, Tom and Vaughn get buried in the cavern. Vaughn tells the audience that they have 36 hours of resources to keep them alive. Peter hears about his sister's plight and enlist the help of Wick (who wants to kill Vaughn), yow generic Australians and a French Canadian nurse who "couldn't climb a ladder," to load up their climbing bags with volatile nitro glycerin ("1 million sperm and you were the fastest" asks one of the aussie climbers with some justification) to charge up Hamburger Hill with Colonel Stupid on his suicide mission.
And that's your plot. How will it all work out? Well, you can probably guess.
This is stupid, but fun if you allow it to be. Some nice set design (oh yeah, most of this is on sets) and the effects are good enough. There are many worse ways to spend a couple of hours than with this generic disaster flick.
Bell end Texas Billionaire Elliott Vaughn (the late Bill Paxton in a rare villainous role) tried and failed to climb K2 4 years before the events of the film. Something went wrong and people ended up dead, with Elliott surviving. Leader of the doomed expedition was Mayama Wick, who we later learn was left for dead on the mountain by Vaughn who had stolen her Dax needles to prolong his own survival. Her husband Montgomery (Scott Glenn), a master climber, goes to the base camp every climbing season to search for her body and confirm his suspicions that Vaughn was responsible for her death. While this fun is going on, Wick's old climbing buddy Royce Garrett dies in an accident while climbing with his son Peter (Chris O'Donnell) and daughter Annie (Robbin Tunney). Peter is forced to cut the rope to prevent his father's weight from pulling them all off a cliff face.
As fate would happen, Vaughn returns to the mountain for Round 2 and gets Annie to assist him on his trek at the same time that Peter randomly visits base camp. Turns out this climb is part of a publicity stunt by Vaughn who has just opened an airline and wants to wave at the inaugural flight as it flies over the mountain. Now common sense will tell you that anyone who would agree to lead an expedition like this would be the worst person possible to lead an expedition: enter Tom McClaren (Nicolas Lea) who will show us how correct that thinking is.
At 24'000 feet and a 30% chance of weather coming in McLaren's not going to take control and explain that 30% chance of death is far too high to continue. Nope, he'll be manipulated by Vaughn, not once but twice, into continuing. By the time he does turn around they are walking into a blizzard. Annie falls into a cavern, an avalanche then ensues, and Annie, Tom and Vaughn get buried in the cavern. Vaughn tells the audience that they have 36 hours of resources to keep them alive. Peter hears about his sister's plight and enlist the help of Wick (who wants to kill Vaughn), yow generic Australians and a French Canadian nurse who "couldn't climb a ladder," to load up their climbing bags with volatile nitro glycerin ("1 million sperm and you were the fastest" asks one of the aussie climbers with some justification) to charge up Hamburger Hill with Colonel Stupid on his suicide mission.
And that's your plot. How will it all work out? Well, you can probably guess.
This is stupid, but fun if you allow it to be. Some nice set design (oh yeah, most of this is on sets) and the effects are good enough. There are many worse ways to spend a couple of hours than with this generic disaster flick.
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