Life According to Juiced Today: Everest Review

Shooting the film at progressively higher altitudes in Nepal, Icelandic-born filmmaker and director, Baltasar Kormakur, had to import snow from Holland as part of a secret weapon deployed to make this 3D flick even more realistic.

“It was the real stuff, minus 60 degrees; when we were shooting at Pinewood, we blasted it in their faces as hard as we could.”

The film ventures into the 1996 expedition to Mount Everest, where eight climbers died on the world’s highest mountain. True stories tend to have messy narratives and Everest is no different - there is plenty of ice, hypermasculine men with beards, dangerous precipices and deafening high winds.

Jason Clarke (Terminator Genisys) plays Rob Hall, a shrewd guide who made a business out of taking climbers up Everest. His devoted followers include part-time postman. Doug Hansen (John Hawkes, Deadwood, Eastbound and Down), experienced but silent Japanese climber Yasuko (Naoko Mori, Doctor Who, Torchwood), and big-talking Texan, Beck Weathers (Josh Brolin, Sin City: A Dame To Kill For), whose extraordinary twist in the story became the crowd’s delight at the screening.

With a few thrills that will leave you at the edge of your seat - like the snow rocks coming down the mountain and almost hitting the audience (3D Effects lol), Everest is a mildly compelling story at best.

The film follows Rob, who knows that having the experienced journalist Jon Krakauer -played by Michael Kelly- on board will generate good publicity, perhaps even landing his business a front page article. Krakauer was originally supposed to be climbing with Hall’s rival team-leader, Scott Fischer (Jake Gyllenhaal, Southpaw) who seems to think Rob babies the climbers up the mountain, instead of letting them climb on their own.

Rob and Scott put aside their enmity and decide to team up to avoid the chaos of having so many tour-groups jostling for space in narrow passes.

At the end of the film, audiences will recall the question Krakauer posed to the climbers about why they were doing it in the first place:

“To see that beauty from above there.”

“To inspire little kids that anything is possible.”

“To complete all the seven summits.”

And the killer reply, “Because it is there!”

 

Yet there is no other, more interesting answer than the last one in case someone asks you why you would want to watch Everest.

Catch the film at IMAX Cinema. To book click here or go to KenyaBuzz here.

*The above article has been reproduced as is from the blogger’s website and remains an intellectual property of Juiced Today Kenya Website. Any changes made were either stylistic or editorial.