"Vertical Limit" brief analysis

I had seen “Vertical Limit” before but I remembered there were some cool things about it so decided to watch it again.

Things I learned as a filmmaker:

I will be honest the plot stinks. But the stunts are amazing. They actually filmed this in the Himalayas, on K2. They flew all the gear and the actors to their locations and it shows! Its great to see scenery that is not green screen. Granted there is CG but nothing major. This brings me to my first observation- you may have the best stunts in the world, but the plot is what the film will be judged on. In theory if you could make a film where the stunts matched the plots intensity then you would have a tremendous film. This I think is what the original “Matrix” did, and one of the reasons for its success. So as a filmmaker one must ask how can we make the plot more intricate, and the characters more rich.

My second observation is the main character is so blah. He has absolutely nothing interesting about him. This is a tragic mistake, the hero MUST be multidimensional. Otherwise we tune him out. I think the lead was miscast in my opinion.

Another thing is how everything goes wrong on this trip, EVERYTHING! This is important to remember when making films like this because as an audience member you don’t really think that’s weird, or strange, you actually come to enjoy it and wait to spot the next event.

There are several scenes that are pretty great however, one where they are trying to jump off of a helicopter that is losing its lift. There’s another scene where the main character leaps off the cliff onto another cliff. If you get the film I recommend to just fast-forward through the plot to the stunts.