Wolff rating: FAIR
Plot summary: Some climbers go up mountain. Climbers get hurt. Other climbers go after first set of climbers.
Biased, pithy comments: Go to your garage. Attach a rope to your rafter, then hoist yourself halfway up to the rafter. Dangle there. Grasp at stuff you can't quite reach. Grunt. If possible, have someone crack some giant white styrofoam blocks beneath you. There! That's about 85 percent of this film. About the nineteenth time someone was dangling over the edge of something after failing to secure themselves against a safety line, or securing themselves against an inadequate safety line, my credibility was stretched thin. The moral of this story is, more or less, anchor your ropes securely, and all this crap would never have happened. There are some Hollywood elements to this---a revenge plot, a rich dork, and yes, even a bomb, but these elements seem to be distraction from all the dangling. Mountain climbing is an exciting sport, and real tales of low-oxygen craziness can be riveting, but this movie is just dumb. Now, having said all that, it was never *bad* in the sense that the music, SFX, and shouting wasn't well-executed, but your brain hurts after watching too much of this.
Other Notes: SPOILERS---SPOILERS---SPOILERS---When I was watching the movie, the helicopter dismount scene seemed utterly pointless; besides looking fakey, I couldn't figure out what this scene had to do with the story. Watching a snatch of the DVD making-of featurette, Campbell talks about how they added the helicopter scene just to liven things up. Argh. I've generally liked Campbell movies before, so this is a disappointment.
How many times I have seen it: x1
Starring: Chris O'Donnell, Robin Tunney, Scott Glenn.
Directed by: Martin Campbell