Fresh and Exciting

Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

This film provides a decent glimpse into the events of May 10, 1996, a disastrous day on Mount Everest on which eight climbers died. There are twin plot lines here -- stories of the professional guides and their often, but not always, privileged clients who tackle the world's highest peak, and the tale of a mountain whose five-mile-high weather has a will and a mind of its own. The climbers here paid $65,000 each to be led up and down Everest, and, watching this, you have to wonder why. The monster rock and its environs are magnificent to see, but so little time is spent enjoying the experience -- and so much expended attempting to avoid accidents and getting killed by the elements -- that it doesn't come across as enjoyable at all. It's necessary to proceed at such a slow pace that I often felt that I could outpace these athletes -- being a middle-aged lady of 61 with an inflamed left patella and all!The acting here was OK -- I enjoyed Naoko Mori in the tiny role of quietly plucky female climber Yasuko, and craggy visaged Icelandic Ingvar Eggert Sigurdsson as the oxygen-refusing climber Boukreev -- but so much verisimilitude was pumped into the atmospherics of wind, blizzard, and chill that all the characters' dialogue was often inaudible. In addition, I felt the casting here left something to be desired. There are too many characters on whom to focus, and too many of them look alike; in the end, I felt somewhat tempest-tossed myself as I tried to keep everybody straight. This story falls into the category of films depicting nature's indifference to man -- a basket including the far more gripping and convincing "Open Water," "Backcountry," and perhaps even "The Blair Witch Project."As much as I'd like to support a director from Iceland, a country I love and visit yearly, it seemed to me that Baltasar Kormakur put more effort into getting an all-star cast with the likes of Jake Gyllenhaal and Keira Knightley (both in not very prominent roles) than in telling a gripping and important story well. The characterizations here are superficial, and in various closeups I had the feeling I was watching a scene filmed in a studio rather in nature itself, a very tacky and off-putting perception. I enjoyed Kormakur's Iceland-based "Jar City" and am eager to see his "The Deep." "Everest" definitely leaves me curious to see more of his work. A little more focus and a little less big-name glitz would help his future efforts.

Everest is a great movie which is about the tragic 1996 distaster.The actors are amazing!Everest gives you what it is like to climb it.A thing that might turn some people of is the lack of action.Everest is a very accurate movie.

Everest is based on the true story of Robert Hall and Scott Fischer's expedition to the summit of Mount Everest. It's a premise that suggests an emotional character-driven story of two men braving the elements as the ascend Everest. Unfortunately, the movie never reaches the dizzying heights that its title suggests.There are some elements of the movie that do really well; the majesty of Everest is excellently captured with beautiful aerial shots and visceral down-to-earth shots of the climbers which convey the lethality of Everest, imbuing the movie with a sense of tension throughout. However, this effect is severely diminished by the lack of characterisation that is the movie's greatest flaw.Primarily suffering from a lack of focus, it attempts to introduce the characters of all those involved in the real life expedition, perhaps this was as a homage to them and their families but it stopped the movie having a clear protagonist. Additionally, the development that these characters get is very, very limited. It may be that the adherence source material was the downfall of this movie as there is a distinct lack of any character arcs.As such, emotional moments are scarce. Despite the many on-screen tears, you will be hard-pressed to find yourself feeling for these climbers you barely know no matter how well-acted they are (and they are, Jason Clarke as Rob Hall stands out). Thinking on it, I can only recall the one scene which really struck a chord with me (once again, sold very well by Clarke) but, on the whole, I was apathetic to the plight of the climbers. Do not expect this movie to blow you away with a story about people and their attempt to conquer Mount Everest, it settles for being a half-baked disaster movie that spends a lot of time building itself up only to sabotage its own potential with poor development of the cast.

I decided to sit down and watch a film that involved a disaster which didn't involve and army of flying robots dropping an entire Eastern European city on the locals while Robert Downey Jr saves the day. I know. I was amazed to find a single disaster movie which couldn't be described like that. However, I came across 'Everest' – a filmed based on an ill-fated expedition to the titular mountain back in the nineties. The team of climbers was left in a pretty bad way after a freak avalanche and what followed was a harrowing tale of human versus the elements as they tried to survive in one of the most inhospitable environments in the world. I have to say that I was quite optimistic. I'd watched similar films in the past like 'Alive' and thoroughly enjoyed them, plus 'Everest' boasted a cast which included Jake Gyllenhaal, Josh Brolin and the latest 'John Connor' from that 'Terminator' movie which no one apart from me liked.However, despite my optimism I was left with a feeling that this film was nothing I hadn't seen before. A team climbs Everest. They get stuck. They have to survive and get back down. I knew that going into the film so I suppose I can hardly claim to be disappointed about what I got, as I got exactly that. No more, no less. Everything about the film can be summed up in a single sentence.I don't know what I was expecting, obviously just more than was on offer. Yes, the actors were predictably sufficient in their respective roles and the scenery (filmed in picturesque mountains with epic views – don't know whether it was technically filmed on Mount Everest or not, but it was suitable to fool a geographical novice like me!) was truly magnificent. However, there just wasn't that much to keep me interested. I know it was a true-to-life story, so they hardly bring in a fleet of alien spaceships with death-rays, but there just wasn't much there to keep me interested.I also have a problem with certain war films where soldiers are basically all dressed alike. I find it quite difficult to tell one actor from another. Here it's a similar problem as they're all wrapped up so tightly to protect themselves against the harsh elements (not to mentions porting full facial beards making identification even harder!) it made telling who's who quite hard sometimes.I certainly didn't hate the film. The quality of acting talent on offer and the great filming locations made it just about worth sitting through. However, when a film can be summed up in one sentence I just feel it doesn't offer (a) much in the way of shocks or surprises or (b) little when it comes to making me want to sit through its two-hour run-time again. Pity, but only the once. Maybe I'm now so brainwashed by Marvel-style movies that I can't appreciate a film that doesn't involve Optimus Prime smashing his way through New York with a battleaxe for an arm.