Everest (2015) - Review

Rating: 8/10 (17 September 2015)

Everest tells the story of Kiwi mountaineer and guide Rob Hall and the terrible events that happened in 1996 while a large group was attempting to reach the summit of Mt. Everest. Being a true story you can usual expect bad things to happen and this is true, this film is brutal to watch at times, it's also very good. Director Baltasar Kormákur is probably best known lately for the 2013 film 2 Guns, staring Mark Wahlberg and Denzel Washington and while I quite enjoyed that film this is much better. I went into this film not knowing the details of the actual event it was based on and if you are the same I advise you to not look it up before you see the film.
Before I knew this was based on a true story I had seen some trailers and thought that this was gonna be your typical stuck on a mountain disaster movie, it's really not at all. The film takes plenty of time to set up both the characters and the situation. It's actually quite educational, goes into great detail about how one goes about climbing the highest mountain in the world but it's never boring as it does this, it also does a solid job of making you never want to attempt this yourself.
For really the first hour of the film we get to know all the main characters and we are with them as the go through their training. That training involved going up Everest and acclimatizing at a camp and then back down, the next time you go to the next camp up and so on until you have worked your way up to the summit. Some really bad weather happens and it hits the fan, that's all I'll say on that.
This film really has a great cast, Jason Clarke plays Rob Hall and unfortunately he was one of my primary issues with the film, I like him fine but I really don't like him as a leading man, he did alright but I think someone else could have been better in the role. I found myself latching on to Josh Brolin the most, I felt that he gave the best performance in the film, really liked him. Sam Worthington was really good even though his role was fairly limited, Jake Gyllenhaal was fantastic as always and Keira Knightly gave a really strong performance even if her accent was a bit dodgy in places.
The film looked fantastic, the cinematography was beautiful and there were a lot of moments where you will feel very cold just watching it. Unfortunately there were some moments that had some pretty obvious green screen and some bits that really looked like they were on a set, these were minor annoyances but they pulled me out of the film a little.
Really well done telling of Rob Hall's story, great performances over all except for Jason Clarke and some minor visual issues, still highly recommend checking this out, preferably on IMAX.