Everest

Everest

Starring Jason Clarke, Jake Gyllenhaal, Josh Brolin, John Hawkes

Directed by Baltasar Kormakur

The Story:
Up to 1996, nineteen people had lost their lives climbing Mount Everest.  In 1996, expedition group leader Rob Hall (Jason Clarke) rounded up a group of people including doctor Beck Weathers (Josh Brolin) and mailman Doug Hansen (John Hawkes) to do a seemingly routine climb up Mount Everest.  After a month of training, they began their death-defying excursion up the mountain in hopes of reaching the summit.

All was going well, until an unexpected storm hit the mountain, causing the climbers to scramble and struggle to survive in the harsh realities of Everest, which not all of them would survive.

The Synopsis:
"Everest" is based on the real life account of the group Rob Hall took to the mountain in 1996.  Unfortunately, not everyone survived the ordeal, and the film is very careful to portray all the characters as normal, everyday people and not show any one person as a particular villain or someone the viewers could hold responsible for what happened that fateful day.

Unfortunately, that leads the film itself to be very dry and boring.  With no particular character to root for, and not one character to hate, you've got a group of vanilla players who you don't know and don't particularly take any vested interest in.  At a movie clocking in at two hours, that's a long time to wait for the real action to take place.

When that action does take place, it does so at breakneck speed.  One moment the sun is shining and our characters are having the experience of their lives.  The next minute, dark clouds appear and a massive storm hits with little warning.  It goes from 0 to 100 in about ten seconds, and the resulting catastrophe is downright depressing.

The only character with real development is Everest itself.  The director excels at making the mountain the main protagonist.  More than just a mountain, it's a sheer powerhouse of beauty, but also death.  The cinematography is simply stunning, and also nerve wracking.  It's a perfect blend of nature's beauty and wrath all rolled into one, like two sides of the same coin. 

Sadly, the other characters don't show that much depth.  I didn't even remember the names of most of the characters, and when the storm hits and people die, I kinda forgot who was who.  That's incredibly sad not just because they were real people, but because the film had such big names attached to it: Jason Clarke, Jake Gyllenhaal, Josh Brolin, John Hawkes, Keira Knightley, Martin Henderson and Robin Wright give competent performances, but none of them stand out, which leaves a little less punch to their fates. 

The Summary:
While visually breathtaking, "Everest" failed to develop the characters into people you cared about.  Half biopic, half action film, "Everest" doesn't fully deliver on either.

The Score: B