Reel-View Ratings: The Bigger The Beard, The Better The Movie

EVEREST

Even 20 years ago, Mount Everest was merely a challenge, not an impossibility. But one fateful day in May 1996, a glut of climbers attempting to scale the world’s most famous peak were caught in a blizzard. Eight people died on the mountain. Famously immortalized in Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air, the story is retold here in Everest — but even a star-studded cast can’t save this mediocre retelling. Too many characters fight for too little face time, resulting in a motley bunch of archetypes scaling the claustrophobically filmed mountain. There’s no intimacy in this tragedy, just a bunch of famous faces hidden by bulky parkas in the billowing white snow.

Opens Sept. 18 in wide release

HOW TO STEAL A DOG

Fed up with poverty, elementary schoolgirl Ji-so and her friend Chae-rang concoct a scheme to get rich quick by stealing dogs and returning them only when their owners put up an award. She targets Wally, the pampered pet of a wealthy woman, only to inadvertently get caught up in the machinations of the owner’s greedy nephew. The family-friendly flick surprises with nuanced portrayals of poverty and the pain of growing up, even as it delights with comical interludes and the most adorable dog, ever. The child actors are cute without being precocious, and the adults never come off as idiot caricatures. Everything — from laughs to tears — is balanced here, just so.

Plays at 6 and 7:30 p.m. Sept. 19, and 1 p.m. Oct. 1 at Doris Duke Theatre

MAN ON HIGH HEELS

Uber-deadly police officer Ji-wook can kill a man with nothing but a toothpick, but his real passion isn’t crimefighting — he’s saved for years for the surgery to formally transition to a woman. Before he gets a chance to make it official, a criminal boss seeking vengeance targets Ji-wook’s friends, forcing him to delay his own happiness to save their lives. The topic is ripe with potential — a transgender cop struggling with the expectations of the job — but the execution is murky. Motivations trail off into irrelevance, not quite enough is done with Ji-wook’s inner dilemma, and the ending is strangely dissonant with everything else. But oh, the violence is a sight to behold.

Plays at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 20 and 1 p.m. Oct. 2 at Doris Duke Theatre