Everest survivor says new movie is 'Total Bull'

One of the survivors of the tale now being told in Everest has spoken out about the truth of the events in the film

Everest is out now and it's about what you could expect from a big budget IMAX spectacle about people who try to climb a really high mountain. The film tells the tale of events which took place on the mountain in 1996, using real people as characters played by famous folks like Josh Brolin, Jason Clarke and Sam Worthington.

As in any case of bringing a real story to the big screen, liberties have to be taken as dramatic license and trying to get the full range of human emotion, feeling and the reality of the situation into a two hour movie. But one of the survivors isn't happy with how he was treated in the picture.

Jon Krakauer was on the mountain as a journalist and wrote a book about his experiences called Into Thin Air. He saw the film on its release a last week and had a pretty short summary for the LA Times: "It’s total bull," said the 61 year old, who also wrote the book which became the movie Into the Wild.

The author said that people shouldn't expect anything resembling the truth from the movie, and that they should just read his account in the book Into Thin Air instead. Which sounds like a good way of upping his sales.

Krakauer had many issues with Baltasar Kormakur's movie but most of his ire settles on a scene where his character, played by House of Cards' Michael Kelly in the film, refuses to go out on a rescue mission because he is snow blind.

"I never had that conversation... not even sherpas could go out. I’m not saying I could have, or would have. What I’m saying is, no one came to my tent and asked."

Obviously films are put together with an eye for drama and this scene is a pretty clear example of that - showing just how terrible the conditions were for the climbers. No one is expecting a realistic account of what happened, but these situations are complicated when you're using real names and real events as the source of your drama.

Everest is in cinemas now.