I know I am in a significant minority when I review this movie, and I know many will wonder what I’m talking about. Everest just wasn’t a very good movie. I realize that many have never seen a mountain climbing movie or, worse, have only the likes of Vertical Limit to compare it to. But before I get too far into my review of Everest, let me mention a few mountain climbing movies that I would watch a dozen times again before forcing myself to watch Everest. The most notable one to me is a recent one that most people have never heard of. Depending on who you ask, it’s the 2008 (or 2010) German release North Face (Nordwand). It takes a few minutes to get past the subtitles, but it’s worth it. This movie is horrifying in its detail of its climbers experiencing some of nature’s most brutal physical elements. There is also Touching the Void. There is also K2. Heck, I’d even put Cliffhanger up there as a more entertaining movie. And while it’s not about reaching any summit, the absolute best climbing-based film is the fantastic 127 Hours, one of the best 2 hours you can spend with a film (side note: watch the director’s cut). But as far as Everest goes, I had extraordinarily high hopes for this film. And it disappointed on just about every level.
Category Archives: Drama
Black Mass (2015)
Black Mass? More like Black Mess. This movie wasn’t just a story most of us couldn’t care less about; it was boring. It reminded me of American Hustle in that it was set in the same time period; it had a fantastic cast and, most importantly, the high expectations going in. This movie wasn’t as disappointing as American Hustle was, because it didn’t have the Oscar expectations going in that American Hustle did. Nonetheless, like the Christian Bale-led movie, I expected big things from this Johnny (Finding Neverland, Chocolat) endeavor. I don’t know if this movie was trying to be a combination of The Godfather, The Departed, and Public Enemies, but it didn’t succeed beyond making Depp look like an old Jack Nicholson. I liked seeing Depp outside of the quirky roles he has been performing as of late. And while he was pretty good, the movie was brought down, in part, by how boring his character was. Unlike American Hustle, in which the performances were good (yet still overrated), the performances in Black Mass were flat. A terrific cast is wasted here. It is a disappointing movie in every sense of the word.
Two Days, One Night (2014)
While I am not the biggest fan of foreign language films, I am the first to admit that when a foreign movie is excellent, you get to the point where you don’t even notice you are reading subtitles anymore. You become so gripped by the film that it’s not just a great foreign film you are watching… but rather a great film. However, on the flip side, when a foreign film is terrible, it tends to drag and drag and drag. Part of that reason is that you’ve tuned out the movie so much that you have no idea where you are in the film when you do glance back. As a result, it becomes a dreadful movie experience. Almost all the foreign films I watch are recommended to me. Rarely will I be perusing Netflix, seeing a movie, and adding it to my queue because it’s a “foreign movie.” I am far more likely to skip a film with subtitles than to watch it. As a result, I rarely find a foreign film to be mediocre. I usually end up either liking the movie a ton or feeling like I just wasted two hours of my life. There are, of course, exceptions to the rule, and that is precisely what Two Days, One Night is. It is a mediocre movie in every sense. It had nothing to do with it being a foreign film. Had it not had subtitles, it would have been equally mediocre.
Straight Outta Compton (2015)
Straight outta Compton and straight into the Oscar buzz. It’s early, and this movie will be forgotten by Halloween (just like most of the great films released in the first eight or nine months of each year). Still, for now, this movie is hot with audiences (over $100 million grossed in its first eight days) and critics (89% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes), like just about any other movie of the year. As I will explain in my review below, Straight Outta Compton didn’t do anything (besides the music itself) that was amazing on its own, but it did do just about everything well. I wouldn’t call it the surprise hit of the year, as many other movies flew further under the radar (Ex Machina and The Gift are the two that come to mind for me). Still, it was a movie that could be very good or very bad, depending on the acting, which parts of the story would be told, and, most importantly, the direction. I’ll talk more about F. Gary Gray (The Negotiator, The Italian Job) later in the review, but long story short, he nailed it. Straight Outta Compton was his most challenging and impressive work to date. While I think it’s an extremely long shot based on the history of the Academy and its voting, his name could still be swirling around as a dark horse for Best Director come December.
The Gift (2015)
Joel Edgerton’s (Warrior, Exodus: Gods and Kings) The Gift is easily the surprise hit of the summer. Creepy and suspenseful, this movie is a clinic in developing characters and fully entrenching viewers in the storyline. I saw the film in a theater that was 75% full, and you could hear a pin drop during its quieter moments. Everyone was all-in on the story, and nobody seemed to know where it was headed because of the oohs and aahs at each new twist. Given its 93% “fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes, I did not doubt this movie would be good. However, I did not watch a preview beforehand (on purpose), nor did I know anything about the film other than what someone said the night before my viewing that they had heard it had a crazy twist.