The most dangerous place on earth.

Rating: 7/10 (1 July 2018)

No matter how trained you are, you can't win against the nature on its own grounds. When you have passion for something, you naturally want to be best at it. If you are passionate about climbing, your ultimate life goal must be to climb the highest mountain in the world Mount Everest. There are companies to help you achieve that goal. One of those companies is called Adventure Consultants led by highly trained professional Rob Hall (Jason Clarke). The plot of "Everest" is based on the true story of the 1996 Mount Everest disaster. This disaster occurred on 10-11 May 1996 killing 8 people including Rob Hall. The story focuses closely on the lives of these mountaineers and their struggles and what it means to climb on Everest. The film was directed and produced by Baltasar Kormákur. Adapted from Beck Weathers' memoir Left for Dead: My Journey Home from Everest, "Everest" opened on 72nd Venice International Film Festival on 2 September 2015 with a total runtime of 121 minutes
Until the actual climbing, director takes your hand and walks you through the film explaining what is going to happen. Dead bodies and blood vomiting people are just the visual proofs of the expected. Human body is not built to climb on Everest. That's why achieving this, makes it so special. The strong point of the film is that, it is not focusing only on the disaster but also the lives of the mountaineers from camping to climbing. We get to learn a thing or two about climbing. A couple of times you witness the greatness of the mountain through the eyes of the mountaineers and through the information provided to us. The director literally prepares you for the film. The perception of the tragedy depends heavily on the transmitting of this early message. Because how audience will perceive the rest, is based on this early tour and director makes sure that, his warnings are heard loud and clear.
The visual effects are breathtaking because you are watching a film about the highest mountain in the world. Even though it is a disaster film, you get to enjoy the scenery pretty much. This is the reason why "Everest" was released on 3D and 3D IMAX. It must have been a real pleasure to watch "Everest" in the cinema but it still managed to give me chills while I was watching it at home. I literally felt cold while watching the film. This made me anticipate how those mountaineers must have felt during the disaster. This feeling made me live the film and eventually enjoy it. "Everest's" ultimate goal is not to deliver a message but to help you understand the greatness of the tragedy. This is what the film aims for and it is successful.
The tragedy is real but the conversations and the struggles of the mountaineers are added up in the story. That's why real-life actions of the mountaineers are not open for discussion. To judge the actions of those characters, you need to be fully aware of their circumstances. Rob Hall dies making a huge mistake by listening to his feelings. One of his customers, Doug (John Hawkes) is climbing slowly behind the group. While Rob makes the summit and turning back, he meets Doug and Doug insists to go up because he came all the way until there and he will not be coming back again next year. Also, he has already failed 3 times to reach the summit. Rob accepts his wish and climbs back to the summit with him which eventually causes both deaths. So, I was mentioning earlier that, Rob is a professional climber who wouldn't make such a mistake under these conditions and we are not sure if this is really the reason why he died. That's why the actions in the film are not very much open for discussion.
In "Everest," there is no place for feelings. It shares the coldness of the mountain. This is the weakest point of the film. Director doesn't focus on the humane part of the plot too much. He is just telling the story and gets it over with. Even the conversations between Rob and his pregnant wife Jan (Keira Knightley) are superficial and not real enough as intended. The director could have worked a little bit more on that. It is a good thing that he shows the real pictures of those people at the end of the film, and in my opinion, that is the saddest part of "Everest." With its tragic story and beautiful outdoor scenes -except the dead people around- "Everest" is a nice biographical adventure film.