All in all it's a good movie, but it's unbalanced. The movie is based on true events and the story is set in the pre-WW2 era. It's 1936, Nazi propaganda is everywhere and in this setting the ascent of the north face of the Eiger is misused to show the supremacy of the German race. The depiction in this movie is annoying, though. There is no critical note to this gloomy period in German history. The German climbers are the good guys; the climbers from other countries are depicted as caricatures, giving up before even starting or, as in the case of the Austrians, portrayed as stupid people, taking too many risks, eventually being the cause of the failure of the German heroes. This bothers me. It feels like I am again looking at one of those propaganda films.
The second part of the movie, the actual climbing, is much better. It feels like the movie was actually shot on that mountain. Computer generated images and studio shots are not obvious, so viewer's attention is not drawn away from the struggle these climbers are in. At times it really gave me the rush of being high up on a steep slope, only inches away from a certain death. Not being a climber, I thought this part of the movie made up for the failing start. All in all it get's a 7 out of 10 from me.
The second part of the movie, the actual climbing, is much better. It feels like the movie was actually shot on that mountain. Computer generated images and studio shots are not obvious, so viewer's attention is not drawn away from the struggle these climbers are in. At times it really gave me the rush of being high up on a steep slope, only inches away from a certain death. Not being a climber, I thought this part of the movie made up for the failing start. All in all it get's a 7 out of 10 from me.