Everest

Everest, the latest film from director Baltasar Kormakur is the movie based on the novel Into Thin Air by author John Krakauer and it's both visually and emotionally arresting. It tells the story of the fateful expedition up Everest where eight climbers died on the mountain and countless others were injured after being trapped on the mountain and besieged by a monstrous storm. I enjoyed Everest and feel it's worthy of three buckets of Killer Korn.













Off the bat I want to clear the air and come clean with you. I want to admit that I am not a fan of Baltasar Kormakur's work. I didn't like his film Contraband and I thought his film 2 Guns was decent. Now this may be because Mark Wahlberg were in them both and if you don't know how I feel about him as an actor please allow me to share. He's absolutely atrocious and that may be what dragged Baltasar's last two American films down. Thankfully Markie Mark is not in this film. This time around Baltasar has a pretty impressive cast. The story follows climber and Adventure Consultants owner Rob Hall, played by the talented Jason Clarke as he leads an expedition of semi-inexperienced climbers up the mountain while his pregnant wife Jan Arnold, played by Kiera Knightly stays home.


Rob was the guide/herder of Doug Hansen played by John Hawkes, Naoko Mori who played climber Yasuko Namba, John Krakauer played by Michael Kelly, and Beck Weathers played by Josh Brolin. Everest also stars Emily Watson, Sam Worthington, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Robin Wright. It may be Baltasar's best collection of talent in any of his American or Icelandic films. Going into this movie I was curious to see what they did visually with a book I absolutely fell in love with and I was not disappointed. Some of the visuals in Everest are absolutely breathtaking. The screenplay written by Williams Nichols and Simon Beaufoy did a great job of balancing the beauty and the terror of Everest with the emotional aspect of all the characters. They each get their emotional moments and if you didn't read the book and you don't know what happens the emotional impact will hit you even harder.


Technically I think Everest missed the boat on educating the viewer to all aspects of mountain climbing. It instead leaves the audience ignorant. You aren't informed that climbers have to use ladders to traverse crevasses. They are held together and in place by a specific type of rope, something you get no explanation on. Now I know that it's not about those things, that the movie is about the human condition and the will to survive in surface-of-the-moon type conditions but when lives depend on ladders being secured by a specific rope that doesn't freeze, I become fascinated. The look of the film is authentic, like you're actually at Everest and that's due to Salvatore Totino. The film looks exquisite and very fucking cold. The score by Dario Marinelli didn't impress me and I am a big fan of his work. The music sadly didn't add anything to Everest in any way for me so I'll chalk this one up to a project not in his wheelhouse. It happens to the best of them. All in all though, Everest is worth the price of admission but if you go see it bring a sweater, and I'll see you at the theater.