One of the best parts about watching a fairly old movie (seven years counts as old in showbiz, doesn’t it?!) is seeing what has happened to the actors since the film in question came out. As far as the action flick Vertical Limit went, I was treated to a reunion of several TV characters that I’ve seen in the past couple years. From the opening scenes with Chris O’Donnell (Finn on Grey’s Anatomy) and Robin Tunney (Veronica on Prison Break) to later scenes with Nicholas Lea (Krycek from The X-Files), Bill Paxton (Bill Henrickson from Big Love), and Alexander Siddig (Assad from 24), I felt right at home with these actors. Unfortunately, all the familiar faces didn’t help make the film any more enjoyable.

O’Donnell stars as Peter Garrett, a former mountain climber who hasn’t been near a mountain in the last three years — not since a climbing accident forced him to cut a line and send his own father tumbling to his death. Now Garrett is a wildlife photographer for National Geographic.

Garret’s sister Annie (played by Tunney), meanwhile, continued on with the sport and is now one of the top climbers in the world. She’s so good, in fact, that she’s been selected to be part of billionaire Elliot Vaughn’s (Paxton) team that will try to summit K2.

Garrett happens to be at K2 also, and he briefly reunites with this sister before she and the rest of Vaughn’s team begin their ascent.

Even though he’s a skilled climber, Vaughn is portrayed as something of a selfish, egotistical control-freak. So you know going in that he’s probably going to make some stupid decisions on the mountain, and sure enough that happens just a few hours after the team sets off. It looks like there’s a bad weather system moving in, but Vaughn insists on pressing forward even though the team leader Tom McLaren (Lea) wants to turn back. Since it’s Vaughn’s money, they go on and of course are hit hard by the storm. Most of the team is swept away in an avalanche, while Annie, Tom, and Vaughn fall into a deep crevice. They’re still alive, but will anyone find them?

That’s when Garret decides to form a rescue team of his own to go up there and save the survivors. He recruits five other people (including the reclusive Montgomery Wick) to carry some nitroglycerin up the mountain to try to find his sister, Tom, and Vaughn before it’s too late.

The rest of the film deals with Garret’s climb and the difficulties his team faces on the mountain. There’s another avalanche, a couple of nitro explosions, and plenty of close calls along the way.

My Reaction: I wasn’t expecting Vertical Limit to be anything great, but hoped that it would at least be a decent popcorn movie. I wanted to enjoy the mindless action sequences and get caught up in the whole atmosphere of the film.

Well, that didn’t happen. The events were so utterly predictable that I was distracted throughout most of the movie, waiting for my guesses to come true (they did). As soon as Peter had to cut his father’s line, I knew that he wouldn’t be climbing anymore. I also knew that there would DEFINITELY be a parallel scene somewhere else in the movie — and there was. I knew Vaughn was tempting fate when he went up the mountain despite the weather warnings, and I knew his arrogance would cost lives. I also knew that Peter would climb again and that he would save his sister. In other words, total lack of suspense here.

I also didn’t like the fact that the screenwriter thought it was ok to sacrifice four lives to save just one. That would never happen, so the entire premise of the movie was hard to swallow. Sure, Peter would have done anything to save his sister, but I doubt that anyone else would have volunteered to go with him — not even for $500,000.

The action scenes themselves were decent, I guess. But again, just too repetitive. How many avalanches, nitroglycerin explosions, and broken bones did we need to see here?

Overall, I thought this movie was pretty bad and give it just 2 stars out of 5. There are far better action flicks out there, so don’t even bother wasting your time with Vertical Limit.