bennington13

"Based on a true story" - five words that usually signal an emotionally powerful tale of triumph over adversity. Attaching them to Everest, the latest in a veritable avalanche of biopics heading our way this autumn (with Legend, The Walk, Steve Jobs all joining the melee), all but guaranteed a tale of Man conquering a treacherous Mother Nature.

Not quite.

Relating the events of a 1996 expedition, Everest the movie makes the occasional, perfunctory attempt to understand why otherwise sane human beings feel compelled to spend tens of thousands of dollars risking their lives on the slopes of Everest the mountain, but never really succeeds in answering this question. Elsewhere there are rudimentary pokes at the dangerous and polluting commercialisation of extreme mountaineering not to mention an inadvertent swipe at an industry that so easily expends the costly resources of a developing country (not to mention the lives of its countrymen) plucking wealthy Westerners off the side of a mountain they shouldn't have been on in the first place.

Certainly, Everest is one of vanishingly rare handful of movies that uses 3D to stomach churningly good effect. Swooping and gliding through the resplendent Nepalese landscape, Aerial DP John Marzano's vertiginous shots are the perfect showcase for Everest's imposing Himalayan vistas, a glorious virtual tour to be enjoyed from the warm, oxygenated safety of one's seat.

Icelandic director Baltasar Kormákur spends the first hour setting up his man vs. mountain movie, introducing us to a handful of protagonists (including Jason Clarke's dad-to-be Rob, John Hawke's improbable mountaineering mailman Doug and Josh Brolin's brash Texan, Beck), presumably in the hopes that we will come to root for them as they take on one of the most fearsome peaks on the planet.

Instead, it is the mountain itself that dominates both the narrative and the visuals, whether beguilingly calm in the background or unleashing its formidable fury upon the trespassers scattered across its slopes. Once our 'heroes' embark on the final ascent, it's difficult to distinguish one day-glo, puffa clad individual from the next. Not only does this dampen the emotional impact for most of the second, catastrophic half of the movie, it also underlines the film's frankly depressing marginalisation of female and ethnic characters. The most visible are Keira Knightley, Robin Wright and Emily Watson, relegated to the role of worried wives (surrogate wife in Watson's case) waiting back at their respective homesteads, characters with less depth than the resplendent scenery. Most galling is the treatment of Naoko Mori's Yasuko, a diminutive Japanese mountaineer attempting to summit the last of the Seven Peaks, who is insultingly sidelined in favour of virtually every male in the film.

Having spent two hours relating the cataclysmic events of May 1996, Kormákur inexplicably shifts into overdrive, wrapping up its devastating finale in mere minutes. For anyone (like me) unfamiliar with the details of the '96 expedition, the result is unsatisfying, lacking an emotional pay off that no number of over-the-credits photos of the real-life people featured in the movie can replace.

Still. Notwithstanding these flaws, Everest is at the very least a thing of flawed beauty that best hits home when lingering over the majestic Himalayan landscape. Ironically, the film's success in conveying the sheer doggedness of its protagonists' inexplicable pursuit of the peak is what eventually undermines it. Kormákur may get you to root for his headstrong mountaineers but while he had no control over the events he had to portray, a badly mishandled ending sours the entire endeavour.

Extra Ordinary

Jumping on to the reboot bandwagon, 2015′s Fantastic Four wipes the slate clean of 2005′s harmless puff piece starring Jessica Alba and Chris Evans as it (re)tells the tale of a group of scientists transformed into superheroes after an experiment goes catastrophically awry.

At the time, both the 2005 film and its no less silly sequel (Rise of the Silver Surfer) were widely derided. So imagine what it would take to make those look like masterclasses in superhero storytelling. Answer? Fox's latest addition to its muddled back catalogue of Marvel movies.

To be fair, F4 starts promisingly. Notwithstanding the predictable outpouring of rage that greeted news that the new quartet would be young, restless and (gasp!) not all white, the casting was bold enough to pique interest. Michael B. Jordan's natural charisma seemed a lock for the swaggering Johnny Storm/Human Torch, while Miles Teller's intense turns in movies like Whiplash signalled an interesting interpretation of obsessive scientist Reed Richards.

In a world where you're a failure if you're not a tech billionaire by the time you're 30, it's hardly inconceivable that a motley crew of barely post-pubescent prodigies would be at the vanguard of a once-in-a-generation breakthrough. And it's not a massive leap to think that it would take a young, reckless (and mildly inebriated) group of kids to precipitate the ill-fated mission that forever alters their lives.

Throw in Josh Trank (whose freshman effort was 2012′s excellent found footage superhero movie Chronicle) and colour me intrigued.

And for a while, it works well.

The reboot at its best when its rag tag braniacs are doing their science thing. Sadly, that is a staggeringly low benchmark for a contemporary comic book movie. Despite its length, none of the characters are given room enough to breathe. Fitful attempts at backstory and characterisation all peter out into loose ends rather than being woven into a richer tapestry - Ben Grimm's (Jamie Bell) unlikely friendship with Richards, the weaponisation of The Thing for special ops, the Storm family dynamic - all are picked up and then inexplicably cast aside, seemingly at random.

So by the time the faecal matter hits the fan, no wonder it's difficult to care about what happens to anyone on screen (with the possible exception of Reg Cathey's mellifluous patriarch Franklin Storm).

But it's the action setpieces that are weakest, Trank's inexperience with big budget pageantry thrown into stark relief by shoddy pacing and anti-climactic showdowns. The portrayal of the fab four's powers is cringeworthy, with lousy physical acting (particularly from Teller and Kate Mara), but the real shocker is a Dr Doom (Toby Kebbell) lumbered with an incarnation even worse than that sported by Patrick McMahon in 2005).

It doesn't help that key narrative sequences are also missing - there's no 'learning to use my powers' montage, nor any trial and error adventures as they start to work as a team. In fact, they're kept apart for much of the time until Doom bursts violently - and incongruously - into the movie for reasons that remain at best, inexplicable. By the time F4 slouches towards the finish line, it feels as though the film-makers just want to get to the end as quickly as possible.

Which is a real shame. This was clever casting with a bittersweet, reality based grittiness that promised to leaven DC's despondency with some of Marvel's trademark wit. Had Fox invested in a stronger crew with more blockbuster experience (a quick check on IMDb reveals cinematography and second units which are woefully under equipped for this sort of venture) it might have at least delivered on spectacle.

Alas, this is a poorly executed adaptation and judging by the critical and box office opprobrium, it's unlikely they'll get another chance to prove themselves - if only Fox would learn their lesson and just hand back the reigns to Marvel.

Proving without a doubt that Marvel do their best work when putting themselves out on a dangerously twiggy limb without a safety net, Guardians of the Galaxy has made one hell of an entrance.

I was prepared for it to be little more than a curio. With Marvel's standard teaser trailers revealing some out of context attempts at humour and little in the way of storyline I'd already made my peace with the possibility that this would be Marvel's first, well-meaning misstep.

On paper, it's a potentially epic fail. A largely unknown property that straddles the no man's land between comic book fantasy and space opera, populated by a cast of not exactly household names and fronted by the chubby guy from cult (i.e. beloved but little seen) mockumentary Parks and Rec, it features a band of initially charmless felons that include a talking tree with a 3 word vocabulary, a double crossing thief and a trigger happy raccoon.

Instead, like the Jon Favreau's Iron-Man and Joss Whedon's Avengers, James Gunn's Guardians is - in defiance of all logic and expectation - a beautifully bonkers triumph.

Like the best comic book movies, it downright revels in the flaws of its heroes from the monosyllabic Groot (surely the easiest paycheck Vin Diesel has ever earned) to the narcissistic self regard of roguish leader Peter Quill aka Star Lord aka the newly buff Chris Pratt. It's also laced with Marvel's trademark tongue-in-cheek humour which, as ever, extends to the slickly conceived comic book violence (watch Groot take out...pretty much anyone).

If anything, between the wisecracking Quill and Rocky Raccoon (Bradley Cooper in possibly a career best turn - and yes, I have seen Silver Linings Playbook) and the beatific Groot, Zoe Saldana's Gamora and Dave Bautista's homicidal Drax do come across as marginally less interesting.

But faced with the challenge of introducing an entirely new galaxy to an entirely new audience in 121 all too brief minutes, Guardians breathes heart and soul into its cornucopia of heroic freaks with cunning efficiency while still finding time for hordes of cameos (not least the end credits, which features the most unlikely comeback of all time).

Confronted by near omnipotent villains (Liverpudlian Lee Pace doing a storming job as an interstellar terrorist), and infused with an almost childlike nostalgia (aided and abetted by the gleefully retro soundtrack - on a mixtape no less!) it's little wonder that whispered comparisons with Star Wars can already be heard.

I count myself among those mildly alarmed by the departure of Ed Wright from the upcoming Ant-Man, but between Guardians and The Winter Soldier, my wavering faith has been sufficiently buoyed. I may not have a clue what Marvel are up to, but as long as they do who am I to argue with these comic savants when they're capable of such cinematic alchemy?