|
| Foocha! is a non-profit Web site. We do it for kicks, not for cash. If you're interested in writing for the site, click here |
|
 |
|
|
 |
|
| Movies,
Patrick Dickinson,
27 January 2001 |
Rating: F3
|
|
| |
| |
|
Vertical Porn. I mean it does it very well. It keeps you titillated, even shaking on the edge of your sweaty seat. But all of it, the script, the acting, the directing, is an obvious ploy, just like a porn flick, to give us sexy spectacle, with a capital SEXY. We look on at the chaos of a K2 climb gone horribly wrong. Mountains erupting, avalanches pounding, people falling into dark crevices or defying death (and almost cliche) to fling themselves onto distant rock faces. And we like it.
From the start, and the soaring IMAX style eagle that moves like a cardboard cut-out over a roasted Death Valley, you feel director Campbell is laying his cards on the table. Movement is the message here, and nothing more. Any plot lines or emotional catharsis will be an add-on, a mere fag lighter to the body of the Porsche the director wants to flog you. And for disaster dripping action you recently could have bought no better. The snow-capped special effects are fantastic. Campbell getting you to believe and feel that disaster is imminent, all the time, every time. As bodies skid down mountainsides and hang from ledges you can’t but help panic and get that visceral, adrenalined buzz buzz buzz going.
But you know this, I’m repeating myself. Why? Well that’s all there is. A screenplay as manipulative as Pavlov tries to keep your interest and personalize the action. Pirouetting around the plot and pyrotechnics are thinly drawn characters - a comic brother duo, an Islamic brother duo, a sexy, bitchy French Canadian mountain climbing ‘chick’ (what more could any man ask for?), and a tycoon who couldn’t be more like Beardie Branson if he tried. All skip around the core duo of lovely Chris O’Donnell and his sister. Both who have been scarred by a tragic family mountaineering accident, both forced in the film (in that noble American way) to come to terms with their suppressed emotions about the calamity.
If the characters in the story weren’t lamentable enough so the screenplay gives O’Donnell the old ‘got to carry nitroglycerine up K2 to blow my way into an avalanche covered crevice my sister has fallen into’ line. A bizarre twist to what started out as simple yet effective save those stuck up the mountain fare. Hollywood suspense is made out of the improbable, even farcical. Its contrived nature, that step away from reality, being part of the entertainment experience that comes with the ticket. But every so often there is that step too far. Maybe with defter handling you would feel the desperation of the situation and believe that the explosives were the only way out. Sadly though it feels just like a way to pump the pulse and fuel the action. Which of course it does – dare I say – admirably.
UK rating:
12
US rating:
PG-13
Martin Campbell
Chris O'Donnell
Bill Paxton
Robin Tunney
Scott Glenn
Izabella Scorupco
Top Home |
|
|
|
|
