Everest Review

Everest is an adventure film based on a true story, it’s about a bunch of climbers who decide to climb to the top of Mount Everest, which is very hard and could cost them their lives. It comes to us directed by Baltasar Kormákur who some may know as the director of 2 Guns (2013). Everest stars Jason Clarke, Michael Kelly, Sam Worthington, Keira Knightley, Josh Brolin and Jake Gyllenhaal.

Everest Trailer

Everest Review

Everest is a film that had some fairly good trailers in the lead up to its release that featured some fairly good actors to entice everyone to come along. On top of this, the film is based on a true story about survival and overcoming a massive obstacle, which requires a lot of strength and determination. It has everything a film seems to need to be something fairly great, however, Everest isn’t really at all that great and I found myself getting a bit bored with it about half way through.

While Everest is this great story about a group of men and women who go on an almost impossible and very interesting journey to the top of one of the worlds biggest mountains, the films characters are far from interesting. There are just far too many big name actors in this film, each getting some very small roles and screen time, which leaves you wondering who you’re supposed to be routing for as you watch them all go up the mountain.

Josh Brolin’s character comes across as the most interesting of the lot and provides a fairly solid performance, but I never really grasped his characters motivations. It was the same for everyone else, all had strong performances, but had acted and portrayed for some very weak and boring characters. About halfway through the mountain journey people started dying up there and instead of thinking “oh no! Not that one!” I was just was kind of like “oh well, there’s still lots left” and that’s not very good.

Everest is a great story about a very difficult journey, but the story told to us isn’t nearly as impactful as it could of been. Baltasar Kormákur certainly provided us with everything we need to look at to enjoy the film, which includes great actors, great camera angles, some tense action scenes and some nice special effects. But there was just no substance to the men and women on screen and that was a big disappointment, which is mostly due to the script rather than anything else and it’s such a shame.

There are some good moments here and there. Some okay scenes and some fairly gruesome scenes, especially one scene that involved someone being frozen alive due to the low temperatures on the mountain, which made the audience in the cinema I was in gasp for a moment when that character tried to move. But the film is just not impressive enough that I feel I can happily recommend people go out and spend top dollar to see it. If you’re looking for something similar to Everest, a great adventure movie was released earlier this year (or towards the end of last year if you’re in the US) and it was called Wild, it was far more inspiring and emotionally charged with some excellent characterisation. You can check out our review for that right here.

If you really want to go and see Everest, please see it on a discount day or just rent it when it comes out. It’s a sad thing to say because this film had a lot going for it, especially since it had so many great actors as well as a great true story to tell, but in the end it fails when it comes to its characters as well as telling the audience an engaging and inspiring story.