While the movie starts off with an engagingly familiar hook — take lonely girls: Emma (Bethlehem Million, “Throuple”), Julia (Alex Essoe, “Death of Me”), Harriet (Ally Ioannides, “Jesus Revolution”), Lex (Juliette Kenn De Balinthazy) and Dusty (Bex Taylor-Klaus, “Blackbird”), isolate them and put them at the mercy of a cult-like family — it never truly forms into something more than its collective parts. Worse, these collective parts move at a glacial pace, inching forward for a payoff that only shows its hand late into the film’s 100-minute runtime. Patience, apparently, is key in this mostly shallow, slow-moving venture.

The thin layer of suspense, concocted by a quintet of mostly first time screenwriters (Ariel Vida, Cullen Poythress, David Blair, Megan Sutherland and Sean E. DeMott), is one that any horror movie lover can see through long before the gotcha is revealed. This is especially true since the owner of the weed farm, Mona (Jane Badler, “The Lies We Tell Ourselves”), is instantly recognizable as someone hiding a lot of secrets. But without going into spoilers I will say the reveal is executed well enough and that weed does thankfully play a large role in the overall narrative, just it’s much more of the chill strain than I think people would anticipate.

Because of the first half’s aggressively slow exposition, viewers are left to idly sit by and watch the paper-thin and equally motivated characters “grow” to know one another better. Emma, our main protagonist, is most skeptical of this obviously sketchy job but outside of that, she is hardly differentiated from the rest of the group which includes a non-binary character for the sake of having a non-binary character. Without a solid character arc throughout the story, we are stuck with one-note characters that would rarely make it past the first draft stage of a screenplay.

Putting the slow start and nondescript characters to the side, once the gore does finally start flowing, it’s extremely chunky and visceral. Some spooky lighting design also enhances the blood bath, making what we so long waited for that much more pleasing. For “stoner horror” (is this a horror subgenre?), it’s got some great weed motifs, but it takes much longer than it should to get to most of them. If you’re planning on lighting up before the film I recommend going easy as you might pass out long before the movie gets good.

Taking this concept to its fullest, Free Solo is a documentary about American rock climber Alex Honnold, who lives his life, quite literally, as one continuous cliffhanger.

Alex is a figurehead for an extreme style of climbing known as “free soloing.” He ascends enormous walls without safety gear. No harness, no rope, no margin for error. Whilst most soloers will climb comparatively simple routes, Honnold is captivating the climbing community through his dedication to navigating some of the most technically difficult and arduous routes on the planet without a lifeline.

As climbing partner and fellow professional Tommy Caldwell puts it, “People who know a little bit about climbing are like ‘Oh, he’s totally safe,’ and then people who know exactly what he’s doing, are freaked out.”

Alex’s career objective, and the subject of Free Solo, is to climb “El Capitan” in California’s Yosemite National Park, a gargantuan effort for any seasoned climber in normal circumstances, but Honnold aims to do it without a rope. In his own words, “El Cap is the most impressive wall on earth. It’s 3,200 feet of sheer granite and the center of the rock climbing universe.” To put El Capitan’s difficulty into context: It’s first ever ascent in 1958 took a team of climbers 47 days over a 16 month period. With ropes.

The film crew documenting this task are all seasoned climbers themselves, leading to some breathtakingly intimate shots as Alex hangs to his life by the tips of his heavily calloused fingers. Co-director Jimmy Chin (his wife Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi is credited as well) has made numerous films for National Geographic and admits that he’s always been conflicted about shooting a film about free soloing for the exact reason that it’s so dangerous: “It’s hard to not imagine your friend falling through the frame, to his death.”

This ever-present risk dangles in the air throughout. Everyone in Alex’s circle is asking themselves, and at times each other: What kind of person puts himself in that degree of peril? Voluntarily? Honnold has his brain scanned through an MRI, which shows little-to-no activity in the section for regulating danger. Deep-seeded issues of inadequacy and perfectionism are examined, as are tendencies for thrill seeking and a clear lack of intimacy with those closest to him. Alex appears to actively shun an open channel of love from his girlfriend Sanni McCandless, instead viewing such a connection as an impediment, a danger to his perfectly poised zen temperament.

Overall, Free Solo is more thrilling and horrifying than any fictionalized story currently on the big screen. My own viewing experience left me with sopping wet trousers — the result of wiping sweaty palms on my thighs for 100 minutes straight.

It’s a must-watch, but make sure you’re ready and clipped in.

Opening with a history lesson about a small Norwegian town that was wiped out by a tsunami more than a century ago, director Roar Uthaug makes quickly clear that Norway is geologically evil. Or something like that. Landslides in the fjords seem an inevitability instead of a possibility and so we enter the story with a heavy sense of foreboding and foreshadowing.

Kristian (Kristoffer Joner, “The Revenant”) is a geologist prepping to leave his job and move his family out of the little village, Geiranger, they currently call home. Kristian’s family is cut from the same cloth as any cliche-ridden Hollywood dreck, so in addition to his headstrong wife Idun (Ane Dahl Torp, “Pioneer”), he has an innocent young daughter and an angst-ridden adolescent son. Conflict is brewing the moment we see the family unit together and this light drama dominates the early portion of the movie.

Eventually, though, the plot picks up steam and, naturally, the mountain overlooking the community, Åkneset, gives the family an epic send-off. A large chunk of rock breaks off and smashes into the fjord, causing a towering tsunami to threaten the village citizens. As the titular wave approaches, Uthaug stages the action bluntly enough to be relatively entertaining. Kristian knows that everyone must get to higher ground, so there’s a race up the village’s main road to reach a specific altitude.

It’s a fine sequence when factoring in the intentional unoriginality and the digital effects work marks the movie’s best and most impressive attempt to replicate Hollywood quality. But even that feels generous to write. It’s all pretty silly and most of the performances are quite poor, a detriment which is felt more plainly with the lack of star charisma that usually powers Hollywood’s disaster epics.

Once the tsunami has done its damage, The Wave focuses on reuniting the split-up family, allowing Kristian to become something of an unlikely action hero. It makes sense that there needs to be more to the plot than the tsunami just rushing by and this particular aftermath conflict is pretty standard for disaster pics, but that’s where the problem lies. Uthaug doesn’t give the imagery or situations any semblance of personality, so once again, we’re left with a cheap Hollywood ripoff.

Scenes inside a flooding hotel are reminiscent of “The Poseidon Adventure,” but only in a way that further highlights how Uthaug’s efforts have amounted to nothing more than lamely microwaved Hollywood cheese. Treacle flows almost as furiously as the wave itself and there are even some baffling decisions made around a couple of good samaritans who probably should have been left on the cutting room floor.

If that sense of critical generosity seeps back in at any point, it’s to praise the production design in the tsunami aftermath, with sets showing a lot of nasty destruction in what is a much smaller space than the full cities Hollywood regularly destroys. Viewers can tip their hats to the actors for doing their own stunts, too, which is impressive and kind of the complete opposite of how Hollywood usually does things.

But really, none of this makes The Wave remotely good or even vaguely recommendable. The family drama is Uthaug’s focus and the family drama stinks. The level of spectacle is ambitious for a production like this, but hardly commendable as a whole. Still, Uthaug probably accomplished exactly what he set out to do: Make a homegrown blockbuster for all the Norwegian moviegoers who want to see something other than Los Angeles or New York get the brunt of Mother Nature’s wrath for once.

In that sense, mission accomplished. But that’s a low bar to clear in many ways, at least creatively speaking. Uthaug’s insistence that his movie be so mechanically mapped on the Hollywood template leaves no room for originality. If The Wave managed to squeeze in some commentary on American blockbusters or offer something of its own spin on the formula, then perhaps there’d be some worth here. That’s just not what The Wave is. This is a generic imitation all the way. Hollywood might find it flattering, but even splashy popcorn pics can benefit from a discernible identity. We certainly don’t need more Hollywood than what Hollywood is already providing us, though it appears Uthaug would disagree.

The film is based on writer Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster, but opts to make Krakauer (Michael Kelly, “Man of Steel”) a very peripheral figure (his big scene is when he queries the group why they are there) while Rob Hall (Jason Clarke, “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes”), a Mt. Everest expedition group leader from New Zealand, becomes the center of the picture. Up to that time, he has led dozens of commercial climbs, but still feels concern about how crowded Everest is getting.

Everyone is. During the short window where weather is optimum and the climbing is relatively easy (if trudging more than 30,000 feet up the side of a snow-covered granite monstrosity can be called such a word), often dozens upon dozens of would-be adventurers pay extortionate amounts of money to risk life and limb. Why? Well, as the famous clichéd answer says, “Because it’s there.” Here the guide group, Adventure Consultants, takes almost six weeks to acclimate the armchair Mountaineers (although some do have extensive experience) in preparation for the dangerous journey.

Meanwhile, As Rob works hard to ensure that all of the climbers under his supervision are properly prepared, his competing group leader, the hippy-dippy Scott Fischer (Jake Gyllenhaal, “Southpaw”), dismisses Rob’s style as “hand-holding.” He even says, “If these people can’t make the Summit on their own, they don’t deserve to be on the mountain.” In a way, he is right, but he continues to lead unqualified people as close as he can to the top.

As in any film of this ilk, we are introduced to distinctive individuals, all of whom have different reasons for taking the challenge. Doug Hansen (John Hawkes, “The Sessions,” who looks more like Adrien Brody than Adrien Brody) is hoping to inspire his children as well as a group of young students who helped him pay for the trip. Beck Weathers (Josh Brolin, “No Country for Old Men”) climbs mountains as a means of fighting his depression. Yasuko Namba (Naoko Mori, “Absolutely Fabulous” TV series) has climbed six of the world’s seven tallest peaks, and is now aiming to complete her quest.

The ascent seems rather docile as most in the group make it to the Summit, while a few others falter and are forced to turn back. The timeline has to be precise in order to come back down before nightfall. A series of unfortunate events (no new ropes in a very strategic location, a tardy climber insists on making it all the way, etc.), however, and a freak deadly storm conspire to wipe out as many people as possible. I suppose most of the fun lies in predicting who will not return (I found myself guessing correctly about 50 percent of the time).

Burdened with heavy clothing and not too intriguing of a script, most of the actors take a backseat to the cinematography and Everest compensates by concentrating on the beauty and ultimate cruelty of the mountain. The amazing sights and ethereal vistas provide the uninitiated with just a small reason why so many would take the plunge (literally on many occasions). Director Baltasar Kormákur (“Contraband”) has invested blood, sweat and tears (as well as cinematographer Salvatore Totino, “Angels & Demons,” “Frost/Nixon,” “Cinderella Man”) to make this as matter-of-fact as possible. For instance, when characters begin to lose their lives, the deaths aren’t violent. They simply pass out, freeze or fall of a ledge. Plus, with everyone struggling to descend before they become victims themselves, there is little time to weep or grieve. Life may not be cheap up here, but it certainly isn’t very expensive.

Not much motivation on why these people are doing this, however, and that is one aspect which could have been explored a bit more. Also, the juxtaposition of those in peril on the mountain is mollified by scenes with the helpless women (including Robin Wright, “A Most Wanted Man” and Academy Award nominee, Keira Knightley, “The Imitation Game”) in their lives and there is a certain predictability now and then, but so much of it works because Kormákur shot a great deal of the movie on location in Nepal (while locations in Iceland and Italy were also used). And though there are certainly plenty of shots that emphasize the natural beauty of Everest, there’s far more visual emphasis on the countless dangers the mountain poses: Such as the deadly ledges, slippery slopes, bottomless crevasses (often only accessible with flimsy aluminum ladders) and walls of ice and snow that threaten to crumble and overwhelm at any moment.

With all of the emphasis on location, though, a few of the actors do stand out, especially the cocky Texan Beck, who is seen sporting a (Bob) Dole/(Jack) Kemp (the GOP ticket from 1996) shirt in the movie’s beginning. When he realizes he may not be as strong as he thinks, we see the bravado melt off into a very palatable vulnerability. This scribbler may be in the critical minority, but I was on the edge of my seat during most of this (with the exception of some slowness in the middle) and recommend Everest as one of the more effecting productions of the year.