A Dazzling Survival Thriller Gets Stranded in the Streaming Wilderness

Stories pitting humanity against nature are easy to tell, but difficult to get right. The “snow-capped action thriller set on a treacherous mountain range” is a niche subgenre to say the least, but Summit Fever doesn’t quite come close to matching the highs of its spiritual predecessor Vertical Limit.

To be fair, the latter boasted a $75 million budget and an experienced blockbuster director in GoldenEye and The Mask of Zorro‘s Martin Campbell, whereas the former was made for a fraction of that cost and helmed by The Rise of the Footsoldier‘s Julian Gilbey, so like-for-like comparisons aren’t really very apt.

On the plus side, Summit Fever does boast some dazzling visuals and nail-biting set pieces, but a 38 percent Rotten Tomatoes score hammers home the notion that it’s all sizzle with very little steak worth recommending. The plot finds a wide-eyed mountaineer encouraged to tackle the “Big Three” of the Matterhorn, Eiger, and Mont Blanc in a summer of scaling peaks, only for the team to find themselves heading into the final charge right on the cusp of a massive storm.

Predictable to a fault, but regularly very nice to look at, Summit Fever has nonetheless scratched and clawed its way to mild success on streaming this weekend by landing a spot on the most-watched rankings of both iTunes and Rakuten, per FlixPatrol. It isn’t exactly must-see entertainment, but there are definitely worse ways to spend your time if you love few things more than watching nature hand mere mortals their icy asses.

Stories pitting humanity against nature are easy to tell, but difficult to get right. The “snow-capped action thriller set on a treacherous mountain range” is a niche subgenre to say the least, but Summit Fever doesn’t quite come close to matching the highs of its spiritual predecessor Vertical Limit.

To be fair, the latter boasted a $75 million budget and an experienced blockbuster director in GoldenEye and The Mask of Zorro‘s Martin Campbell, whereas the former was made for a fraction of that cost and helmed by The Rise of the Footsoldier‘s Julian Gilbey, so like-for-like comparisons aren’t really very apt.

On the plus side, Summit Fever does boast some dazzling visuals and nail-biting set pieces, but a 38 percent Rotten Tomatoes score hammers home the notion that it’s all sizzle with very little steak worth recommending. The plot finds a wide-eyed mountaineer encouraged to tackle the “Big Three” of the Matterhorn, Eiger, and Mont Blanc in a summer of scaling peaks, only for the team to find themselves heading into the final charge right on the cusp of a massive storm.

Predictable to a fault, but regularly very nice to look at, Summit Fever has nonetheless scratched and clawed its way to mild success on streaming this weekend by landing a spot on the most-watched rankings of both iTunes and Rakuten, per FlixPatrol. It isn’t exactly must-see entertainment, but there are definitely worse ways to spend your time if you love few things more than watching nature hand mere mortals their icy asses.