THE MOUNTAIN BETWEEN US – A Review by Hollywood Hernandez
The Mountain Between Us is an adventure movie based on Charles Martin's 2011 book of the same name. Idris Elba plays Ben, a neurosurgeon who has to get home to New York to perform brain surgery and Kate Winslet is Alex, a photojournalist who waited until the last minute to get home for her wedding in New York. When an incoming storm strands the two travelers in Idaho Alex approaches Ben with a plan to rent a small plane to fly them into Denver ahead of the storm.
The two strangers become travel companions and when the storm comes rolling in earlier then predicted their small plane crashes high in the mountains of Northwest Utah. Now, the two strangers have to rely on each other to survive.
Beau Bridges has a small role as the pilot of the plane but this is basically a two actor movie drawing on the star power of its leads, Elba and Winslet.
When the two survivors realize that no one is coming to their rescue they decide to climb down the mountain, battling the elements, wild animals and the injuries they sustained in the plane crash.
We learn a lot about the two characters as they travel down the mountain (I can't reveal much more without spoiling the movie) and as they survive the extreme conditions this action adventure becomes a love story.
The Mountain Between Us went to extreme for its realism. The movie was actually shot at the 10,000 feet level in the mountains of Calgary. The actors took a helicopter each day to the location where temperatures were as cold as minus 38 degrees. So, when the actors seem to be freezing, they are not pretending.
The movie has some amazing action in the beginning and finishes with some melancholy and emotional scenes in the final act. It was a very satisfying combination and I liked the way things all wrapped up.
The Mountain Between Us is rated "PG-13" and has a run time of 1 hour and 43 minutes, which for me was a bit long and some parts of the film kind of dragged on, but it is a good adventure with some serious star power.
On my "Hollywood Popcorn Scale" I rate it a LARGE.
