Review of The Mountain Between Us (2017) by Orlando O — 06 Oct 2017

A survival romantic film about two plane crash survivors that have to find their way home in the snowy mountains could have been a whole lot better. The Mountain Between Us lacks in about everything from character developments to even making the characters interesting. The thrills of surviving was very dull in the movie. And the last half of the film spending it with the two leads following in love with each other was just terrible.

No offense to Kate Winslet and Idris Elba for being in such a terrible film. They both are great actors and they work with what they got in the script. Kate is a beautiful stunning actress. And Idris Elba is a talented actor. There characters were nonetheless boring and uninteresting. Kate plays photojournalist Alex, who is suppose to get married and is trying to find a flight home (the day before the wedding). And than you have Dr. Ben played by Idris Elba, who needed to find a flight asap for an operation that he needed to be there for. Both desperate people got caught with their flights being cancelled. And they find a pilot that can fly them home without filing a flight plan. Then, an incident causes there plane to go down and crash in the snowy mountains. With limited food supply and no help coming. They both will need each other to survive and to find their way home.

The direction was boring. There was no suspense build up. The scene with the plane crashing was dull and did not make it intense at all. The dangers with the characters coming across a cougar was boring. The whole film was just frustrating with Kate and Idris bickering at each other. Idris telling her they need to stay put and take it slow. And Kate running out there and wanting to find help. It's a movie were you see two characters hike in the long snowy mountain telling and reminding each other what they need to do for survival. And discussing about possibly dying. It can get boring when this is going on for the whole movie. Were the entire script is wasted with poor dialogue and no development. Occasionally, seeing Kate getting into trouble and Elba coming to the rescue repetitively.

Also, the music score from Ramin Djawadi was slightly disappointing and did not add anything to the movie. Then, the predictableness with the characters falling in love with each comes to play which is hands down frustrating and terrible. These characters are apparently been stranded for three weeks but when watching the movie they felt like they been stuck out there for a day or two.

When it comes to the conclusion, the film slows down and takes forever to find an ending. Which some scenes could have been trimmed down that did not do anything to the plot or development. Besides seeing two characters chase each other cause there not sure if there in love or not.

Overall, The Mountain Between Us is a terrible film. Kate Winslet and Idris Elba are the saving grace with their acting. But there characters are not. The direction is dull and tedious. The love story is frustrating and cliché. Not even the sappy kind of love story either.

I rate the film 2 out of 5 stars. I do not recommend to see on the big screen, there is no excitement and no real suspense. If you want to see, I ll wait until it's a rental.