That’s only part of the problem in the unfolding disaster that befalls the attempt on the summit. He’s the laid-back counterpart to Clarke’s Hall, who worries the mountain has become too crowded. Gyllenhaal’s character, who says things like, “It’s not the altitude, it’s the attitude,” is introduced sunbathing at base camp (does this guy ever wear a shirt anymore?). There are others - far too many to keep track of - but the mountain itself is the star, and director Baltasar Kormákur (“2 Guns”) wastes no time putting you there, with a vertiginous shot of the group traversing a suspension bridge. Besides Krakauer, Hall’s clients included mailman Doug Hansen (John Hawkes), cocky Texan Beck Weathers (Josh Brolin) and a Japanese woman, Yasuko Namba (Naoko Mori), who’d already climbed the other six of the world’s seven highest mountains. Recounting an expedition gone wrong in 1996, the ensemble film introduces us to Rob Hall (Jason Clarke), the New Zealander who controversially pioneered commercial climbing on Everest Scott Fischer (Jake Gyllenhaal), founder of rival company Mountain Madness, and journalist Jon Krakauer (Michael Kelly), whose book, “Into Thin Air,” recounted the events of that fateful trip. The first three words in my notes, from the opening sequence of frozen hikers struggling up a rope on a vertical, icy rock face, are: “Dear God WHY?” I’m not sure I came out of the theater with a satisfying answer, but “Everest” is a pretty terrific use of IMAX and 3-D to bring the mountain - which “always gets the last word,” as one mountaineer puts it - to us.
Rated PG-13 (language, disturbing images).
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