Everest

"Never Let Go" the movie poster says, even though they all let go. I saw Everest with two other people and they loved it, however all I could think about was why in the world would anyone want to do that? Especially when they have a family; what in the world is so fun about this thing that looks horrible even when shit doesn't hit the fan? My roommate let me know that people don't do it because it's fun, they do it because they have something to prove to themselves, which just led me full circle to think what about this could be so meaningful people would risk their lives to the degree that 1 in 4 people die on Everest. Despite this very logical stream of thoughts, a bunch a people went to summit Mount Everest in 1994 and pretty much all of them die.

My group and I saw this movie in 3D, which was alright for the wide shots of the mountains and the shots of the storms, but otherwise it didn't really do much. More effective, I would argue, was the sound quality of the theater. If there was shitty sound quality, or just if the bass wasn't what it should have been, it would not be nearly as an immersive experience. This movie was pretty amazing, I just really can't get over why people would do this to themselves in the first place.

You can pretty much pick out whose going to die from the start. There's the too cocky guy who thinks he can hike an indeterminate amount up and down Everest and not really need any breaks (guess which actor plays this dingus). There's the guy whose already done this once and didn't make it to the top and he "ins't doing this a third time" and he really shouldn't have been cleared to climb Mount Everest in the first place because he's been coughing since they got off the plane. There's the people who you think, Wow, they've done so much with their lives but their character really is never developed past the point of their accomplishments. And then there's the guy that wants to save all these guys. He dies as well. And while it is pretty obvious that all these people will die, each time one gets picked off you're like Wow, that was the worst thing I've ever seen, only it happens over and over again.
The story is pretty good even though you're constantly thinking that they're all dumb-dumbs for trying something so dumb and being really dumb while they're dying and that it's all over an avoidable dumb situation. I thought there were too many characters to really keep them all straight, and since it was blizzarding the whole time you can't really tell who is who, so my friends would talk in code i.e. "Is that Texas?" or "Is that the coughing guy?" or "Is that the guy who is supposed to get all the other people down the mountain?" and my favorite, "Is that the chick?" because there was only one lady. It was all very cryptic.
Once the events in the movie began to get real questionable I latched onto my roommate and didn't let go until the end. I was breathing pretty irregularly, and probably had quite the face for the majority of the movie. Everest was tense as shit is what I'm trying to say, so if you panic easily, or just can't handle the immense pressure of a movie like this, do not see it.

Once this movie begins to go to shit, it's like that until the end of the movie where the movie gives the biggest middle finger to the audience and tells you that "their bodies are still up there". The biggest problem with this movie is the shameless climbing brand plugs. And while the brands of clothing they were wearing were up to date (the latest brand being made in 93'), the equipment was too modern for that time, or so my roommate who knows a lot more about this than I do tells me. Another large part of this movie that bothered me personally was that Jake Gyllenhaal was the only actor I knew and was excited to see, but he didn't have that big of a role, and the most screen time he gets is when he is dying/dies, and a lot of his character development was just there so there was an orgy of evidence that his attitude would be the death of him, so that was disappointing. I don't know, it may knock a few weeks off your life, but it's pretty interesting, so see it if your cool with all the possible consequences. My roommate works with electricity and had to climb on ladders the day after we saw this movie and kept having Everest PTSD, so consider your options.