Everest

"Everest" is a true-life story about a very bad year for those trying to ascend Mount Everest. While folks dying there is NOT unusual (heck, the mountain is apparently littered with dead bodies of those who have failed), this was a particularly bad year and the film does a good job of recreating the hellish climb and conditions the folks went through in order to check this dangerous feat off their bucket lists.

While I thought everyone in the film was foolish, the filmmakers did a great job of making you feel as if you are there....no small feat. So, technically speaking the film is brilliant and making it must have been an awful experience in many ways. As for the story, it's also compelling even if I thought the people were foolish....and this actually surprised me. My only fault with the film is that it would have been nice if the characters had been more fleshed out and multidimensional. Still, it's well worth seeing...and must have been incredible to see on the big screen as it's quite a spectacle.

I always find my viewing experience of the retelling of historical events ruined when I come across scenes which I know have been added for dramatic effect or when someone is played as a bad guy just to let us know who to root for.

The King's Speech was particularly guilty of the former, the portrayal of other teams in Glory Road had the latter, and The Imitation Game was shamelessly guilty of both. I'm not saying this made them bad films, but it certainly made me feel like the experience had strayed away from a retelling of the facts as known.

Everest is everything that is good in such a film. There is no needless good v evil addition and no leading the viewer to conclusions. It tells the story and I have since spent three or four days thinking about the hows, whys and wherefores... whilst knowing I will never find an answer.

The other touch that really elevates this film is that there are no added action sequences that have been added to make Everest more of an action move. The film makers have been intelligent enough to realise that climbing Everest does not need any exaggeration, the characters involved were three dimensional people, and the story was interesting enough not to need embellishment.

I expected an action film but left pleasantly surprised by a biopic with a light touch.

The one mark deduction is for the totally unnecessary 3D. The film absolutely didn't need me wearing dumb glasses to be three dimensional.

Based on real life events in 1996, this dramatic thriller tells the story of Kiwi mountain-climber Rob Hall (Jason Clarke) as he leads a group of mountaineering enthusiasts on an expedition to the peak of Mt. Everest. Kicking off with Hall and his team boarding a plane to Nepal, there's very little backstory provided for any of the numerous players being followed, with the focus squarely on their physically demanding journey ahead. And here's the rub: the film homes in so intently on the climb itself, with gorgeous cinematography and tense, cleverly designed set pieces, that it doesn't take the time to actually make us care for those in this life-threatening situation. Additional groundwork from the onset getting to know the eclectic group of adventurers better could have upped the ante even more, adding extra heft in the second half when things don't go according to plan. Yet there's no denying Icelandic director Baltasar Kormakur (Contraband, 2 Guns) presents the action and generates thrills with impressive craftsmanship, aided by seamless CGI and Salvatore Totino's Oscar-worthy photography. It's one of those rare motion pictures where the employment of 3D genuinely intensifies the experience too, lending depth and height to the extraordinary environment that is Mt. Everest. Kormakur also lands a cast to die for – including Clarke, Jake Gyllenhaal, John Hawkes, Josh Brolin, Keira Knightely, Robin Wright and Emily Watson – but wastes most of them, especially the women, in slight roles with no meat on the bones. Everest is a solid cinematic outing with just enough excitement and tension to compensate for the frustratingly underdeveloped characters.

Having just this week returned from climbing all 19,341 feet of Kilimanjaro, I find myself intimately capable of reviewing "Everest", the new thriller from Icelandic director Baltamar Kormákur.

Based on a true story from 1996, Jason Clarke and Jake Gyllenhaal play Rob Hall and Scott Fischer respectively, rival organisers of commercial climbing ventures whose businesses involve training well-paying clients at Everest Base Camp and then taking them to the summit to experience the 'ultimate high'. When the climbing season of 1996 becomes hugely crowded, including a rather obnoxious team from South Africa, the two rivals decide it is in the interests of their clients to combine forces and attack the mountain together.

We are introduced to some of the clients including Texan Beck Weathers (Josh Brolin), second-attempt postman Doug Hanson (John Hawkes) and Japanese mountaineer Yasuko Namba (Naoko Mori) chasing her seventh and final major mountain summit. Supporting the teams is hen-mother from base camp Helen Wilton (Emily Watson), medical helper Caroline Mackenzie (Elizabeth Debicki from "The Man from U.N.C.L.E.") and hard-man Anatoni Boukreev (Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson) who eschews the use of such luxuries as oxygen. To add dramatic tension to the situation, Rob Hall's wife (Keira Knightley) is heavily pregnant with their first daughter.

In an extremely hostile environment, as a storm passes through, the film neatly characterises how a single impetuous decision can have devastating consequences.

The action scenes in the film are well-executed with a number of vertiguous shots and heart-in-the-mouth moments, neatly escalated by Dario Marianelli's effective score. At its heart this is (without remembering the details of the original news story) a "will they, won't they" survival story of the ilk of "The Towering Inferno" and other classic disaster movies.

However, despite the long running-time and relatively leisurely built-up, I found there to be a curious lack of connection between the viewer and most of the key players. Perhaps this stems from the fact that you know they were all fully aware of the potential dangers? Or perhaps that the mountain seems a bigger character that any of the humans involved? Whatever the reason, it's only the future parental responsibilities of Hall that really resonate and make you root for him as opposed to any of the other characters.

Some of the hardest special effects to pull off are those that depict the natural world (as opposed to Krypton, Asgard etc), and in this regard the team led by Jonathan Bullock (from the Harry Potter series) does a great job. Whilst the "top of Everest" was in reality a set in the Pinewood 007 stage, you'll well believe a man can freeze there.

As such, this is a decent and entertaining telling of a true-life tragedy that will definitely work better on the big screen than the small.

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This is an excellent movie. Good acting, great script and terrifying plot. Honestly, it is difficult for me to find any sympathy for any of the characters tho. At no stage does the movie give any appearance of professionalism or low risk. Anybody who ventures up on this crazed escapade does so with full knowledge that he or she is putting his own life and that of others at extreme risk. Zero sympathy when that eventuates. Choice! And ego!!