Everest

I have no doubt this movie will pick up a lot of Oscars in the technical categories, but will miss out on acting. That's not to say it's badly acted, but it is the story itself that is so compelling. The soundtrack and cinematography are just amazing! And the 3D IMAX really add to the spectacle of the whole experience. I think you need a combination of courage and madness to take on Everest as it has been the final resting place of many a climber. You are in awe of the majesty of this mountain. Whether you make it or not isn't just dependent on your experience as a climber, you are at the mercy of the elements that can change dramatically within a few hours. You don't have to have an interest in climbing to appreciate this movie. This drama is based on actual events. The pace and direction are very good. You don't learn a whole lot about many of the characters, but they all have the same goal and ambition. I admire their courage, but I like my adrenalin in a controlled environment at Cedar Point, Ohio!!!! If this movie subject appeals to you, it is well worth seeing - and you should also check out the docu-drama Touching The Void!

We were hoping to see more of Sherpa people's life stories than some rich dudes climbing the mountain. Very bad that Hollywood chose to highlight Westerners in this movie. Very bad that there is very little shown about locals. No one liked it. We were all very disappointed. The movie is nothing about the place. It is all about how some rich people got into problem because of the weather. None of the school students like it. They should have made a movie about Sherpa people. Hollywood has become so shamelessly ignorant about diversity.

Everest looked like a generic disaster movie made purely for the big screen in the trailers. Not so. It tells the true story of a disastrous climbing expedition which took place in 1996. Since this is a true story, there's less room for the emotional manipulation and over the top set pieces which would have been expected. The film admirably follows the true story faithfully and doesn't sensationalize events. The way in which the film was marketed was misleading. There isn't as much action as the posters and trailers suggested. It's more of a realistic survival story than a big scale disaster flick. As a result, some may leave the theatre disappointed. Everest is an unexpectedly solid movie, but it certainly has its problems. There are definitely moments where the film loses your attention a bit, while a lot of the character deaths aren't given enough impact and seem rushed. In some ways, the part involving the climb to the top is more enjoyable than the slightly underdeveloped and occasionally rushed second half focusing on the disaster. Still, this will surprise you. It's a tense movie rather than a really thrilling one, which is a pleasant surprise and shows the film's maturity and restraint. Despite the many characters, they are all developed enough to sympathise with. It's got a very good cast for a disaster movie, and they all give good performances. Even Keira Knightly and Sam Worthington are bearable. The film's big surprise is its emotional impact. This is a tragic story with one of the best- and saddest- final shots of the year. Not everyone makes it out alive. As a result, it's not as forgettable as it looked from the marketing. The direction is pretty good as well and doesn't show off the visuals, instead focusing on the suspense and the characters. Obviously it's not full of really developed characters, but not every film can be so that's not a problem. Everest is a solid, satisfactory survival film with a strong cast, tense set pieces and a surprise emotional punch, although it feels somewhat rushed despite it's 2 hour runtime. 7/10

I just don't understand. First people willfully put their lives at risk- pushing it further and further and then when something happens? you are supposed to say? "real bright idea jackass, why not descend into a volcano next?" People place their lives in danger repeatedly trying to climb Everest and when something goes wrong? They act like the 'mean ole mountain got em', no, more like that jackass who decided to place their life in danger for bragging rights is the culprit. Climbing Everest ties into self-esteem I suppose. I just don't get it. Who NEEDS to say they climbed Everest ? In general, Vegans will tell you they are a Vegan before anything else "Hi, I'm Bob, and I'm a Vegan" you never hear "Hi, I'm Larry, I eat pork, and chicken but not beef" Usually people just HAVE to tell you they are taking Yoga lessons too Everest isn't too far behind Yoga lessons.

Everest is not a bad movie, but it isn't a pretty one either, it's pretty bad! especially for anyone who has viewed mountaineering and/or survival themed movies before. Cinematography: The cinematography is certainly good. Some panoramic scenes are breathtaking and successfully convey the awesomeness of the task that is scaling the Everest. Music score: I can't recall now if the movie even has an original music score or any music at all. A rather odd exception for a movie that is bound to have elements of suspense and intense human drama. Casting: There are some big names in the cast, who have been assigned small parts and the lead roles given to relative and complete unknowns. The audience has an obvious expectation of the significance of a character based on the reputation of the actor playing that part. Now, big names are sometimes used to play characters that die early and unexpectedly to put the reassured audience in a state of shock and real sense of danger about the remaining characters. However, Everest employs no such ploy. The casting is just plain nonsensical. Character development: Rarely have I seen a movie that does a worse job of character development than Everest. There is a lot of time spent on absolutely irrelevant small-talk, boring background description, prosaic emotional dialogues and for so many characters. At the end of this we are left with one dimensional characters. There isn't a single character, including the protagonist (whoever that is?) that is even two dimensional. It is difficult to impossible to relate or care about any of the characters. One could not care less if a character went up the mountain, or down, or just round and round. It felt weird to be so enormously apathetic about any character falling in or out of peril on the slopes. Acting: I suppose some of the bigger actors tried to do the best they could with the small parts and insipid dialogues, but the actors in the leading parts failed to deliver. The portrayal was dead-pan throughout. Direction, Script-writer: The only thing that could compare to the everest in this movie is the colossal failure of the director and the script-writer. A mediocre school-boy writing and presenting his first essay ever in school would do about the same as these two. A directionless rambling of random excerpts from a book about the story. When you watch how some directors and script-writers can get a character under your skin in a few minutes you realize just how bad a job was done in this movie. Movie is art ... not a tax-return form: One can understand that the director wanted to be true to the actual story to the letter, with no dramatization, with an assumption that the grandiose setting, that is the Everest, would naturally and automatically impress itself upon the mind of the audience. Unfortunately (or fortunately) the audience cannot implicitly feel the bone chilling winds, or the asphyxiating low oxygen air, or acrophobia, or fatigue sitting in their cushioned seats. They need to be shown these things visually, or through the condition of characters they have been made to care about conveyed through dialog or action. However, Everest director seems to forget these very fundamentals of movie making. Conclusion: Go see 'Touching the void' instead of this movie and if you have already seen 'Touching the void', then go see it again and it will surely be more suspenseful, entertaining, and rewarding than watching Everest.

For the 99.999 percent of us who will never climb Mount Everest, the new 3D Imax drama Everest provides plenty of vividly illustrated reasons to rationalize leaving it off one's bucket list. However, there are quite a few good reasons to see this robust dramatization of a 1996 assault on the world's tallest mountain that went disastrously wrong, beginning with the eye-popping, you- are-there visual techniques that make you feel glad indeed that you're not actually up there at 29,029 feet, but also including multiple characters sufficiently humanized to create real concern for their fates, and an attention to realistic detail that gives the film texture. Universal should be able to add this one to its impressive list of 2015 box-office successes. This autumn seems to be the season for vertigo-inducing 3D Imax releases, what with this and the World Trade Center tightrope-walking drama The Walk in the offing. All the same, Everest doesn't go in for cheap shots or sensation for sensation's sake, remaining close to the men and women who have journeyed to the Himalayas for different reasons but for the same purpose: to get to the top of the world. With its perilous central premise and gallery of individuals some of whom are destined not to make it, you could say Everest is a disaster movie in the old Hollywood sense of the term, but it doesn't feel like one. And that's a good thing. Telling the same story as, but not officially based on, Jon Krakauer 's best-selling book Into Thin Air (perhaps because it was already officially adapted for a 1997 TV movie, Into Thin Air: Death on Everest ), the film hinges on the freakish conditions that led to the deaths of eight climbers on May 10, 1996. Krakauer is present as a character (played by House of Cards' Michael Kelly), there to write an article for Outside magazine. The fact that some engaging, friendly Aussies are front and center as the main tour organizers and guides may account for a good deal of the films immediate accessibility; they're the competent, reassuring type you'd feel good entrusting yourself to on such an expedition. Running Adventure Consultants is Rob Hall ( Jason Clarke), a seemingly all-around great guy, and he's helped out most importantly by logistics coordinator Helen ( Emily Watson ), and guide and close friend Guy (Clarke's fellow ex- Terminator Sam Worthington).

Having read John Krakauer's account of the doomed Everest climb in his book "Into Thin Air" I was anticipating a much more dramatic film with a gripping script. The wonderful ensemble of actors didn't have much to work with. The film is monotone with no edge-of-seat moments -- given the life-or-death extreme setting. And not much of a dramatic soundtrack either. The film has no cadence at all and just comes off as a flat docudrama. The only highly emotional moment is when a dying Rob Hall makes a final call to his wife in New Zealand. I am especially disappointed that a compelling part of Krakauer's narrative is almost completely left out. If there is one pivotal anti-hero in this story it is the NY socialite Sandy Pittman Hill. She's accused of causing many of the crucial delays to the other clients' ascent. Without these delays the climbers likely would have likely gotten back to base camp before the storm came. The film shows one of these critical delays in the absence of rope lines being fixed to the summit. But the film never bothers to explain why this happened. In reality Pittman's distraction of the Sherpa responsible for installing rope lines is to blame – at least according to Krakauer. This would have made for high drama, but the filmmakers inexplicably show her character in just a few brief shots. One wonders if they were threatened with a libel suit by Pittman, or simply co-opted by her when, I assume, they interviewed her for background. The blend of special effect and cinematography is excellent, and it's not to be missed in 3D. But the story suffers from lack of oxygen.