A reminder of our silliness

Rating: 3/10 (25 March 2018)

This film chronicles the events of a particularly bad year for fatalities among the largely white, upper-middle class cohort who actualise themselves by climbing high things.
It's a hard story to tell. These days, Everest climbers aren't adventurers, they're suburban thrill seekers laying out large amounts of money to traipse all over a pristine and eminently hostile landscape, leaving their poop and beer bottles behind. Notwithstanding the meagre contribution they may make to the local economy, they're basically suicidally self-indulgent.
Making matters worse, this film has a tonne of characters, played by a terrific cast, all of whom are indistinguishable in their puffer vests and in pelting snow.
Our ill-fated crew set out to summit, competing with scores of other climbers from across the globe, all desperate for the high altitude selfie. Between the human traffic jam they create, and the sudden onset of a devastating storm, the story becomes a race for survival in which all men (and one woman) have to face off against, you guessed it, 'the mountain'.
I'm sorry for the losses that occur on Everest, and this movie is a terrific reminder of how easy those deaths would be to avoid.
What this movie isn't, is particularly good. The mountain scenes look pretty cool but the dialogue is mostly lame, the characters - when you can tell who they are - don't really inspire much empathy. There aren't any villains, but there certainly aren't any heroes either. As for the story itself, it's a fable of how commercialism, self indulgence and stupidity end up littering a mountain with unretrievable bodies that lie as witness to human folly.