Director: Martin Campbell
Starring: Chris O’Donnell, Bill Paxton, Robin Tunney, Nicholas Lea, Alexander Siddig, Scott Glenn, Izabella Scorupco, Steve Le Marquand, Ben Mendelsohn

- Reviewed by Tom

I often see those pictures of people climbing rocks or mountains and feel a little temptation to try that. But then reading about the Everest climbs that go wrong, or seeing these movies, I again realize that there is no reason for people to be wandering around at 26,000 feet without an airplane.

Of course this movie is just a typical Hollywood recreation of a mountain expedition. There are enough tense parts in it to re-enforce the idea that it is not a place to be. The movie is kind of similar to the story of the Everest disaster a few years ago. A rich Texas oil millionaire (Bill Paxton) pays a group of climbers to take him to the top of K2 by Wednesday. He wants to be on the top at a certain time to film a commercial for a new airline that is planning on flying past the peak with him at the top. Of course things go wrong and he falls in a big crack in the ice along with two of his guides. The rescuers then have to debate if it is worth rising six lives for three, and of course they go for it. The rest of the movie is pretty predictable—people get swept away by avalanches, fall into deep holes, slide down slopes, dangle off an edge by an ice axe, jump across large chasms, ropes break, helicopters don't fly at 26,000 feet, and the heroes slowly die from altitude sickness as their lungs fill up with fluid. Oh, I should also mention there are even some very large explosions in the movie!

The movie has everything a good action movie should: simple plot, helicopters, large explosions, falling bodies, a really mean mountain, and a storm to go with it.

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