Review of Everest (2015) by Scott J — 18 Feb 2016

One thing you really have to admire Everest for is that it definitely felt like they were filming on location. Sure, they probably weren't on the actual peak of Everest, but every scene felt just as cold and life-threatening as it would be in reality.

It certainly did an admirable job of trying to tell a true story without taking a side, and it convinced me that I should never try mountain-climbing. However, because they were so committed to just showing what happened without adding any sort of viewpoint or bias, the movie feels as cold emotionally as it is literally.

The characters all sort of mesh together and it is very hard to keep track of who is who, particularly because they are all heavily covered up throughout the film. They even fall short of explaining motivations for a lot of the characters, so it becomes difficult to sympathize with them.

Obviously people dying who have family is a tragic thing, but since I was given no reason to like these people or their families it didn't have the strong impact needed to make this a devastating disaster film as they intended.

There were a few people that stood out, but that was more because of the actor playing them rather than unique character traits. It's kind of sad, because a film with this much inherent drama and such a beautiful visual style deserves to be more impacting.

Everest held my attention, but overall was rather sterile and flat in execution.