Everest is a based-on-true-story disaster movie. That pretty much sums up everything about this movie. It's based on the actual event of 1996 Mount Everest disaster. And it's tragic.
So I went to watch this movie without any prior knowledge in any way about the story or the characters, except from the trailer. All I know was that it's based on a true event, and it's similar to the book Into Thin Air, although I never read it.
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The movie opens with some facts and data about Mt Everest climbers history. And then it focuses on Rob Hall (Jason Clarke), a New Zealander who owns climbing guide company called Adventure Consultants. He's about to take his group of clients to summit the peak of Everest.
His clients including Beck Weathers (Josh Brolin), whom I automatically kinda disliked because he talked a lot, Yasuko Namba (Naoko Mori), one of the first women who reached all Seven Summits, Doug Hansen (John Hawkes), and Jon Krakauer (Michael Kelly), a journalist who later wrote the book Into Thin Air (although I honestly thought Rob was the one who's gonna write the book, oh man how wrong I was).
Rob tells his clients (and the audiences at the same time) early in the movie that climbing Everest ain't easy, that human being are not meant to survive at the cruising altitude of 747, that our body will literally be dying up there. So yeah, it takes them 40 days or so to get used to the mountain, the climb, the height, the air, the oxygen (or the lack of it).
Besides his clients, Rob also has his Adventure Consultants team, Helen Wilton (Emily Watson) who's the mother-hen at the base camp, Caroline (Elizabeth Debicki) a doctor on site, and Guy Cotter (Sam Worthington). Also Rob's wife Jan Arnold (Keira Knightley) who's supposed to be joining the team there but stays at home due to her pregnancy.
Besides Adventure Consultants, there are a few other groups of climbers as well. Mountain Madness company, led by Scott Fischer (Jake Gyllenhaal), climbers from South Africa and a few other companies. Simply put, the place is over-crowded. And it's worrying because the track is not built for that many climbers. Add to that problem, there's also a storm coming to the mountain.
May 10th, the day all the climbers plan to summit, comes and everyone starts hiking the trail. Problems come one by one from there, starting with the broken rope line so they need to delay the hike until the line is fixed, then everyone starts to lose oxygen and decides to go back, Beck gets a vision problem because of his eye surgery, Doug's struggling for oxygen, and Scott with his apparent sickness. But hey, they reach the top eventually. Happy faces. But this is a disaster movie, a tragedy. So no, it doesn't stop here.
The climbers are supposed to start hiking down from the top at 2 pm. But because of the delay and Doug's struggling, Rob needs to wait until Doug reached the peak, and by that time, the storm is already on its way. From this point, everything goes south. Huge blizzards, dark clouds, God knows how cold it is up there. It's hard to describe it with words, but imagine the worst thing you can go through up on an icy mountain top, this is like 10 times worst.
Long story short, Rob is trapped on his way down, frozen, unable to use his oxygen tank because it's also frozen, Doug's gone, Harris who came to rescue them is also gone, and Rob only has his radio to contact base camp. On his last moment, his wife call is patched through the base camp radio so they can say goodbye. Special shoutout to Keira Knightley's teary scene. It felt real.
Besides Rob, Doug, and Harris, there are a few other casualties of this incident, including Scott Fischer and Yasuko Namba.
The movie ends with several pictures from the real people of this story, the group picture before they began the hike, and the life of Jan and their daughter Sarah now.
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So, here's a few things I'd like to say about Everest. In my opinion, it has a slow build-up, but it flows really well so when the final moment of impact comes, it really hits you. It's great. Also those big cast ensemble with big names, impressive. Although at some point of this movie, I was kinda lost on who's who because there are so many characters and most their faces were covered with goggles and stuffs. But the actors' performance, their emotions, especially Jason Clarke and Keira Knightley, top notch.
Technically, I don't like the effects. The same shot of the mountain was used repeatedly if I'm not mistaken. And some just looked plain CGI. But costume, props, makeup and ice effects on the actors, KUDOS to the team. Especially on how similar some little things are to the real events, like Rob Hall's climbing attire, the group picture, the hug between Beck and his wife Peach when they were reunited, well done. I can't find the screencap but you can pay a little extra attention to those parts.
On a more sentimental notes, to be honest somehow I felt uneasy after finished watching this movie. It's more because, hey, all those horrible scenes, those things in one way or another really happened less than 20 years ago. Those were real people who lost their life and their loved ones. Those were real people who went through that blizzard and survived.
Unlike in many other based-on-true-story disaster movies, which most of the times add more dramas than necessary for the sake of, well, drama (I'm side eye-ing you, Titanic).
I give Everest 4/5 noise. Watching Everest is like watching a documentary with just the right amount of narrative, effects, and drama. Enough to make you feel for to the characters, but also true enough to serve as a memorial to the life lost.
