Everest is riveting. IMAX-3D brings Mt. Everest into your lap and the courageous climbers peril into your heart. Because of IMAX-3D and its power, you will feel as though you are on the climb with them. If you want thrills, scares, extraordinary vistas and scenery this film is for you. Director Baltasar Kormakur makes a true story of death and survival from the book Into Thin Air written by survivor Jon Krakauer available to our souls. This is the story of the 1996 Mt. Everest disaster which killed eight climbers due to a severe storm and lack of oxygen. To film remaining footage, on April 18, 2014, 16 Sherpa guides carrying supplies to the film crew were killed by an avalanche. Watching this film in vivid IMAX takes you there and you wonder how anyone could have survived.
But it because of a woman, Peach (Robin Wright) who is the wife of Dr. Beck Weathers (James Brolin) who calls her Embassy and demands that a helicopter fly in to rescue her husband. He is suffering blindness and frostbite and alone while struggling to return to the camp. He is high on Everest, not within safety of a helicopter flight. Helicopters cannot fly above a certain altitude. But the indomitable Peach Weathers persists. The Embassy obeys her firm command and he lives. Long live Peach Weathers. Though Dr. Beck Weathers loses his hands and nose to frostbite, he is miraculously flown out of the camp site on Everest to the safety of his home.
The stars of this film are the climbers both living and dead. Climber Scott Fischer, who is the leader of the Mountain Madness Expedition, is portrayed by Jake Gyllenhall and fellow climber Rob Hall is portrayed by Jason Clarke, the New Zealander expedition group leader. Both of these stars are touching and effective in portraying the courage of the climbers but, after all, this is a movie and we must honor the climbers whom they portrayed and the fact that these climbers sacrificed their lives to rescue others. John Hawkes brings his usual sympathy to a mailman who was in the expedition of Rob Hall. And Emily Watson (Helen Wilton) gives her usual caring and empathetic performance of the woman on the ground "manning the expedition." It is Wilton's thankless role to report from the climbers during an avalanche and who are facing no oxygen. She must tell them that no help will come to them and then to report to the ground staff about the subsequent deaths. Keira Kneightley is moving as Rob Hall's pregnant wife and Michael Kelly plays Jon Krakauer, a journalist who lives to write the tragic but inspiring story, Into Thin Air. What is inspiring about Everest? A man's desire to triumph over nature. A man's desire to rescue in the face of danger. A man's desire to survive. See it!