Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Everest (2015)

This is topic Everest (2015) in forum Film Handlers' Movie Reviews at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

To visit this topic, use this URL:
https://ft-forum.com/ft/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=4;t=002153

Posted by Stu Jamieson (Member # 4626) on 09-19-2015, 07:36 PM:

1996 marks one of the deadliest years in Everest climbing history - 12 in all, 8 of which during the blizzard of 10-11 May. Indeed leading up to this catastrophic event, 1 in 4 climbers perished attempting to reach the summit resulting in around 250 deaths, many of which remain on the mountain.

New Zealand guide, Rob Hall - credited with pioneering the commercialisation of Everest climbs - was on the peak that day and this film is the tragic story of his party and that of American guide, Scott Fischer.

Baltasar Kormákur's film is a largely by-the-numbers account of that fateful day and the events which lead up to it. It's told in a chronological, almost documentary-style fashion and perhaps would have been better served as a documentary.

The front half of the film - the lead up to the disaster - is a long 70 minutes and although the proceedings are interesting enough, it is a long time to wait to get to the guts of the movie. But when disaster does eventually strike, it is very tense stuff indeed and Kormákur's skill as a director is apparent.

The disaster, of course, is the reason why we have come to see this movie and it does not disappoint. Kormákur makes it abundantly clear what a perilous place Everest is. Life hangs by a thread; in fact the summit environment is inherently unsupportive of human life and the trek therefore becomes a race through the "death zone" (as it is known) and back again before life perishes. With such a tenuous link to survival in place, when the weather deteriorates as it does here, things turn bad very quickly indeed! By the end of this film we have a sound understanding of just how dangerous a place it is.

With so many characters (there were 20 parties attempting to reach the summit at this time) it becomes difficult to keep track of who is who and who is where on the mountain. But when the snow hits the fan and all hell breaks loose, who's who matters little as the true star of the film becomes the mountain and the fury it can unleash.

For a film about New Zealanders there's a remarkable lack of NZ performers. In place of the Kiwis in the story we have an Aussie (Jason Clarke) and two Brits (Keira Knightley and Emily Watson). Clarke (unsurprisingly) sounds Australian. Knightley does her best New Zealand accent and pulls off a perfectly acceptable Australian one. Watson's accent is as Kiwi as Kiwi as Kiwi can be and sounds convincing (to these Aussie ears anyway). But ethnic discrepancies aside, all three provide convincing performances of likeable characters.

Whilst Everest is not the greatest climbing film ever made - that honour goes to Touching The Void - it's a fine document illustrating the perils of high altitude climbing and they are neither higher nor more perilous than this. The script could perhaps be structured a little more creatively to be a little less by-the-numbers and a little more uplifting in it's conclusion, but the direction of the drama at the centre of the proceedings could scarcely be better. A worthy watch.

8 out of 10

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 09-19-2015, 10:38 PM:

quote: Stu Jamieson
Whilst Everest is not the greatest climbing film ever made - that honour goes to Touching The Void...

Have you seen North Face? In many ways that would be my nomination, because it combines both spectacular, location-shot climbing scenes with a substantive, political (and at least in part true) back story.

The Conquest of Everest, about the Hillary-Tensing expedition, is worth a look, too. Most of it was shot on 16mm Kodachrome, but even so the 35mm IB print made for the theatrical release I saw looked very good: you could only just tell that it wasn't shot on 35mm seps.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 09-20-2015, 12:51 AM:

When it comes to the IMAX brand name and Mount Everest, I always think of the MacGillivray Freeman films documentary about the famed mountain.

The new movie is a video camera thing. The one I mention actually involved lugging 15/65mm film cameras up to the summit of Everest, and past the bodies of those recently perished in the movie depicted in this topic thread. That true-IMAX Everest documentary was filmed shortly after that notorious tragedy happened.

I have some special admiration for Beck Weathers. In this new movie he is portrayed by Josh Brolin. The real life guy is a pathologist who went to college in Wichita Falls (not far from here) and is extremely lucky to be alive. The Everest IMAX film documentary covered some of his incredible story. I have not seen this new movie yet to see how his story is treated. But I am nevertheless amazed Beck had the will to survive. It was some totally bad ass shit, topped off with one of the highest altitude rescues ever attempted.

Posted by Pravin Ratnam (Member # 1417) on 09-20-2015, 01:27 AM:

Regal Atlantic Station IMAX Aud9

Another Liemax movie. And while I prefer 2.35:L aspect ratio, it was the WRONG choice for this movie especially with a lot of screens these days being common width instead of common height and don't bother masking. There are no chases or dramatic scenes where characters are spread out throughout the frame to justify the insistence of this OAR. But even if they wanted to, they should have made the effort to do Batman style some special IMAX scenes with the mountain stuff in the last two thirds of the movie. When mountains are your backdrop, it's OK for your field of vision to be overwhelmed vertically as nothing goes on in the top and bottom edges, but it kind of swamps your field of vision with the size. So you get the experience of seeing a lot without missing on any important parts of the frame. That's why the real IMAX aspect ratio was great with those old Everest and space documentaries.

And also let's not ignore the fact that a 2.35:1 movie on a Liemax screen is no bigger an image than the same movie projected on the biggest non IMAX screens of many multiplexes. In fact, the one I saw it in is definitely smaller than some of the big screens in some othre multiplexes as the auditorium is really not that wide.

Movie itself was decent. Theater was surprisingly half empty at 10pm on a firday night despite this being an IMAX only limited release this week.

Visually, the 3D was just OK. I hate the way it makes some scenes look like set pieces with miniature sets. An entertaining expensive night at the movie when you include the 6 dollar IMAX surcharge per person.

Posted by Stu Jamieson (Member # 4626) on 09-20-2015, 05:37 AM:

Thanks for those suggestions, guys. I'll look them up.

I thought Beck Weathers' story was treated well in this film and his survival story is amazing. So amazing that I wonder if he ought to have been the primary figure here. At least he made it out!

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 09-20-2015, 10:40 AM:

Beck Weathers' survival is really amazing considering how expert climbers like Rob Hall died in that incident.

I remember an interview Weathers gave where he described what gave him the motivation to overcome impossible exhaustion and get off that mountain. He said he would get up and then collapse. Then he would do it again and again. He got angry and frustrated enough he wasn't going to stop even if it meant getting up and falling down all the way down the mountain.

Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 09-23-2015, 03:49 PM:

^ wow ... uh, spoiler alert...

I agree about the OAR being scope considering that most IMAX-digital screens and specialty screens are 1.78 - this is my beef with 'The Walk' as well - take up more the screen vertically to make the image as large as possible, don't give me letterboxed borders above and below the image.

as to the movie I loved it. I've seen it in IMAX-laser (4:3 screen): the color, the sharpness and the 3D pop & depth were exemplory. The audio was forceful and impressive, but...

The Dolby Atmos version just knocked the socks off of me - the use of the ceiling speakers is outstanding and in one instance a whirlwind is heard directly over you to hair raising effect. I should have noted this in the 12-channel mix, but the front channels tend to be too overpowering at times and drowns out the overhead sound cues. Went with another friend to hear the Auro 11.1 sound version, and while it was interesting how the soundmixers created layers of wind effects at varying heights, the overhead mono sound was lackluster. In both the IMAX-laser and Dolby Atmos mix, the sound of the storm as it slams the side of Everest and travels up had every hair on my neck stand straight up - the Auro mix didn't achieve that (and that was the second time I had seen the movie).

The 3D effects range from very good and excellent and all round Stereo D's conversion makes it a thrilling visceral experience.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 09-23-2015, 05:39 PM:

I guess what I wrote could be a spoiler for anyone not familiar with this tragedy. But this story has been covered in depth a few different times, such as the Into Thin Air documentary. The true IMAX film Everest (1998) from MacGillivray Freeman Films was shot when the climbing disaster happened. It covered some of the aftermath, including showing Beck Weathers in physical therapy sessions.

The media was all over it in 1996, focusing on the controversy with Sandy Hill Pittman and her deal with NBC Interactive. She was determined to get to the summit and provide material to the media company. She failed to get to the top of Everest twice previously. They reported she was driven enough to get to the top that she literally undermined the rest of the team in doing so. She and a guide set off with some of the team's "sherpas" to get to the summit instead of risking being slowed down by everyone else on the team. They say that contributed to the delays of them getting to the summit and then spending too much time at the top of the mountain. If everyone had followed the climbing plan strictly they wouldn't have off the summit before the storm hit.