I hated this movie when I saw it in the theatre, but figured I’d give it another chance, over twenty-five years later. I just couldn’t understand how Campbell could make two really great James Bond films, two fairly okay Zorro movies, but everything else… not so much.

Is it me?

Hence, the desire to check this one out again. Sure, some of the visual effects are horrid (and that’s being polite), but it’s a solid cast: Scott Glenn, Bill Paxton, Robin Tunney, Stuart Wilson. Temuera Morrison (and a moustache), Nicholas Lea, Ben Mendelsohn, Izabella Scorupco, Alexander Siddig and Chris O’Donnell.

With a better budget, could the film have looked better? Yeah, there’s too much obvious green screen work here, and coming out later in the same year that Tom Cruise was free climbing in Mission: Impossible II, it’s just unfortunate. And then there are the sets that are supposed to be mountainscapes; none of it looks great.

After a horrible decision that shattered their family, Peter (O’Donnell) is called on to climb K2 to help rescue his sister, Annie (Tunney). The pair are estranged following the film’s opening. Thankfully, they are both in Pakistan… Peter as a wildlife photographer, and Annie as professional climber who is there to guide Elliot Vaughn (Paxton) and his party to the summit, as a publicity stunt for the launch of his new airline.

But, of course, things go wrong, and Peter is going to have to pull a Cliffhanger, and confront his fear and guilt over the incident at the beginning of the film to help save the day. Joining him is veteran climber Montgomery Wick (Glenn), and they will prepare to face the mountain together.

Campbell is good at crafting sequences and getting fairly solid performances from most of his actors, but some of the film looked a little too shoddy, even then.

If you want a mountain climbing movie, stick with Cliffhanger. Maybe we’ll get a fun one again at some point, but this one isn’t it. And that’s too bad. It’s got Paxton, Glenn…

Oh, and they’re in sub-zero temperatures, so where’s all the misting air from their breathing? Details don’t mean much, and because of that, and the effects, and he sets, it still doesn’t work. I didn’t like it then; I don’t care for it now.

It’s silly, constrained by its visual effects and its budget, and consequently, it still doesn’t work.

How does Campbell keep missing? He delivered two of my favourite Bond films, but other things that should work just sort of fumble.