The type of climbers who dare to tackle any of the big seven summits fall into two interesting categories in my books. The first is people that I have tremendous respect for. The second is people who are nuttier that squirrel poo. Like the trailer for the movie Everest said, once you reach a certain point, you’re actively dying. I don’t want to seem like I’m belittling them in any way. I could never do it. I climb out of bed in the morning and consider that a success. But I’m here to talk about the movie and the movie alone, so here’s my review.
I hate to say it, but if you’ve seen one climbing movie then you’ve seen them all. Okay, calm down. I know each movie has it’s differences in plot, sub-plot, and other little nuances. What I mean is the basic idea is the same. People want to climb a mountain. They climb said mountain. Nature happens and people die. You watch a climbing movie either because you’re a climbing nerd or you like these kind of harrowing stories. Or there’s the third option. You’re just a glutton for punishment. I’m talking about movies like North Face, Touching the Void, and The Wildest Dream. If you liked those movies, then Everest is just the film for you. If you didn’t or you’re just not a fan of these kind of movies, then go see The Martian or Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials instead.
The acting was solid but nothing blew me away so I won’t focus on it for long. Jason Clarke, Josh Brolin, and Emily Watson were good, as usual. I hate saying that. It feels like a cop out but there’s nothing really more to say. The actors weren’t bad and they weren’t mind blowing. They were just good. Jake Gyllenhaal and Keira Knightley had smaller roles but they stood out a little more and did great with what they had. It seems 2012 was the point where Gyllenhaal decided he’s only going to play really intense characters and Everest is no exception. Emily Watson had a lot of screen time and had a lot of great scenes to go with it and she actually impressed me the most. It was good to see Naoko Mori again. She played Toshiko Sato on Torchwood so any BBC/Doctor Who fans. But that’s really it.
I feel like Jake Gyllenhaal was underused and his character was underdeveloped and so begins my paragraph of bitching. There were too many characters and not enough screen time for them all. Either that or there wasn’t an even enough distribution of said screen time. There were two characters who’s names I forgot, but they just disappear. I’m honestly not sure if they ever show up again. I don’t mean they died, even though they very well could have. I mean there was no explanation of where they went. I saw a glimpse of a character near the end who could have been one of the missing ones but it wasn’t made clear. Another downside of so many characters with not enough screen time for some of them was the fact that they’d mention someone and I’d have to try my hardest to remember who the hell that person was. I admit, if I was more engrossed in the movie then I may have known. This part could have been user error, but it made the movie hard to follow. I knew who the top billed actors were but everyone else is now just a blank face in my mind. That’s a shame because like I said in the previous paragraph, the acting was good.
Everest clocks in at two hours and 1 minute and I think they could have added just a little more time to make everything feel more complete. This wasn’t a bad movie despite the fact that the biggest paragraph in this blog is dedicated to what they did wrong. There were just unfortunate oversights. It wouldn’t surprise me if the solutions to my problems were sitting on the cutting room floor (or in the computer’s recycle bin since, you know, we’re in the computer age). I just wanted this movie to be better. It had a great cast. It had Baltasar Kormakur directing it who also did Contraband and 2 Guns which may not have been great movies but they were at least fun. And it had two great writers. William Nicholson who wrote Gladiator and Les Miserables as well as Simon Beaufoy who wrote Slumdog Millionaire and Salmon Fishing in the Yemen. A lot of great people were involved but somehow it didn’t quite work out.
So let me recap. Everst was good, just not great when it really should have been. Something went wrong somewhere in the process and instead of a star studded Oscar contender, we were given a movie best saved for a rainy day Netflix queue. I can’t recommend seeing this movie in theaters which blows my mind. A movie like this should usually be seen in the theaters to get the full effect of the visuals, but the quality of the movie just doesn’t warrant it and to top it all off, the 3D was terrible. It wasn’t worth the extra money and I saw this for free! This was a classic case of good idea with poor execution. Watch Everest but just not on the big screen.
Everest get’s a 7 out of 11