60
This is one of those cases where fictionalizing a true event, or at least fusing two or three real people into one composite character, might have resulted in tighter storytelling.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
80
Time Out London by Dave Calhoun
Kormákur creates such a convincing world – the craft of this film is astonishing – that you’re willing to forgive its less delicate touches in favour of its totally compelling depiction of what it must be like to ascend into a place that’s heaven one moment and hell the very next.
83
It lacks the same constant surprises of last year's "Gravity" or the visual poetry of "Mad Max: Fury Road," but Kormákur's movie nonetheless marks the rare fusion of effective craftsmanship with focused storytelling.
67
Salvatore Totino's crisp 3D photography and Kormakur's way with a clear, fluid, thrilling action sequence show off the mountain in immensely impressive ways. But the humans involved get short shrift.
60
Ultimately, Everest is not concerned with the why, but with the how and it's grimly efficient at building up the drama, helped on by Clarke's wonderful character study, even if the film as a whole never quite reaches the dizzying heights of its subject.
70
Kormakur doesn’t make the mistake of exalting his subjects as extraordinary individuals, or suggesting that they were obeying some sort of noble higher calling. Everest is blunt, businesslike and — as it begins its long march through the death zone — something of an achievement.
40
The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw
Everest is a frustrating movie in many ways – despite some lurches and shocks, it doesn’t quite deliver the edge-of-your-seat thrills that many were hoping for, and all those moderately engaging characters mean that there is no centrally powerful character.
60
The Telegraph by Robbie Collin
The hardship of the trek is vividly and stomach-lurchingly portrayed, particularly when the storm sets in, but it never makes the crucial leap from the screen into your bones.
50
Screen International by Tim Grierson
While it’s impossible not to be somewhat caught up in these climbers’ life-or-death struggle, Everest is oddly uninvolving — it depicts a horrific scenario in an underwhelming, distancing way.
80
The Hollywood Reporter by Todd McCarthy
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.