Based on the real 1996 Mount Everest disaster, Everest tells the story of two rival expedition groups Adventure consultants, led by Rob Hall (Jason Clarke) and Mountain Madness led by Scott Fischer (Jake Gyllenhaal). As the two groups prepare to climb Everest they soon find that the climb will turn into a battle for survival.
There’s no doubt that Everest is a visually impressive movie and the cinematography is amazing. You can feel the cold coming through your screen and each frostbite looks realistic as hell. The performances by the cast is great. There is nothing outstandingly wrong with the movie.
Yet despite being a well made movie something is missing. The emotional punch of the lives lost don’t hit as heavily as they should. And as impressive as the film looks no doubt it’s impact is lessened by being reduced to the small screen. I also can’t help feel the story would have been served better as a documentary.
Rating 3/5 – a well made movie but struggles to be a truly great one
Very good and fair review Lauren. I believe I felt the same way when I saw this in the cinema. I really loved the visuals and the performances from the cast and if this film did anything right, it captured perfectly the sense of scope, danger and fear that comes with climbing big snowy mountains. Like you said the story and emotional punch wasn’t there and I had hoped for more considering the hype that had come beforehand.
Thanks. I wanted to like it more than I did as it was an accomplished film that looked great but it didn’t grab me like it should have done.