Todd McCarthy, hinn gamalreyndi gagnrýnandi The Hollywood Reporter, segir margar góðar ástæður til að sjá Everest Baltasars Kormáks. Myndin sé kraftmikil og vel gerð, myndrænar brellur séu afar vel leystar og fái mann til að finnast sem maður sé kominn á fjallið, auk þess sem hinu fjölmenna persónugalleríi séu gerð sannfærandi skil þannig að maður láti sig örlög þeirra varða. Hann telur að Universal geti bætt þessari mynd á lista sinn yfir metsölumyndir, en fyrirtækið hefur átt óvenju gott ár hvað varðar árangur í miðasölunni.
McCarthy segir meðal annars:
Everest doesn’t go in for cheap shots or sensation for sensation’s sake, remaining close to the men and women who have journeyed to the Himalayas for different reasons but for the same purpose: to get to the top of the world.
With its perilous central premise and gallery of individuals some of whom are destined not to make it, you could say Everest is a disaster movie in the old Hollywood sense of the term, but it doesn’t feel like one. And that’s a good thing.
Og ennfremur:
In a way that is engagingly welcoming rather than just informational, the film provides a snappy account of the 40-day prep period; the groups proceed to ever-higher elevations to acclimatize to the altitude, camaradaries develop, foibles and fears are exposed, and anxieties and anticipation mix in equal measure. Beck’s Texas braggadocio becomes kind of a gag masking real vulnerabilities (it’s also startling to learn he’s paid $65,000 to make the climb, and this was nearly 20 years ago), while Doug refuses to let some alarming physical symptoms deter him from his quest. For his part, Rob is distracted by the pregnancy of his wife (Keira Knightley) back home; reasonably reliable, if expensive, phone connections facilitate cutaways to her as well as to Beck’s wife (Robin Wright). This is the hokiest stuff in the film.
The second hour is devoted to the final ascent and its aftermath, and it’s all quite intense. A perfect, entirely unexpected storm howls in as the first climbers arrive on the tiny precipice, while many more are lined up single file on the narrow path waiting their turns. While it’s sometimes impossible to identify who’s who under all the coasts, hoods, goggles and masks, director Baltasar Kormakur does a very good job, given the gusts of whooshing wind and blinding snow, of keeping the action coherent and involving; the consequences of over-exposure to the elements are made plainly and painfully evident. It is, in the end, as sad and tragic a film as the story warrants.
For the past several years, Kormakur has juggled projects in his native Iceland with mid-range MarkWahlberg-starring Hollywood action fare. His last home-made feature, The Deep in 2012, was also a true-life death-or-survival tale, but Everest, bigger and more complex than anything he’s done before, vaults him into a new spot professionally.
Sjá nánar hér: ‘Everest’: Venice Review
