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AlaskaRating:
Release Date: 02 March, 2004 Retail Price: $12.98 Sorry, this product is not currently available. Cast: Complete Cast (5 total) |
Alaska Reviews
Alaska : Decent Adventure Fare
ALASKA is a good ol', straight forward, adventure film reminiscent of the type of programming shown on THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF DISNEY tv anthology show back in the 60's and 70's. Good,solid, family entertainment with great location shots of the Alaskan wilderness. While delivering supplies, bush pilot Jake Barnes' (Dirk Benedict) plane is downed during a snow storm. Then, his son and daughter, Sean and Jessie, (Vincent Kartheiser and Thora Birch) take it upon themselves to find him and trek through the remote Alaskan wilderness and rivers. They run into two poachers (Perry and Ben) and let loose an illegally captive baby polar bear. The cub immediately 'adopts' the two kids as his new friends and follows them on their trek. Not too complicated, but entertaining nontheless with some narrow escapes and decent action sequences along with some light emotional scenes. Good to see actor Dirk Benedict (A-TEAM, BATTLESTAR GALACTICA) doing some work along with veteran Charlton Heston in an uncharacteristic villian role as one of the poachers. He's probably in the film because his son Fraser C. Heston directed.
What part of: "This is a Children's Film" don't you understand?
Hard to figure the negative comments about this film. It is geared to an elementary school audience who will find it very entertaining. But it is also good family viewing because the scenery is terrific and the polar bear cub is very cute. Since there was never a conspiracy to keep the demographic identity of the target audience a national secret, those complaining about its lack of sophistication were just too lazy to check it out before actually viewing it. The film delivers exactly what it promises so there is no real basis for that kind of criticism.
The editing is first class; especially on the canoe down the rapids sequence where the second unit stuff is perfectly cut into tight shots of the two stars. Thora Birch turns in another excellent performance and Vincent Kartheiser shows that even before "Angel" he modeled his acting on William Shatner (this is not a complement).
There are a number of plot holes but nothing that really matters. One interesting thing is the scene where the bear cub helps in the rescue effort by pulling the rope with his teeth. Seldom can you point to a "single" stupid detail that drastically dumbs down a film but that is the case here. Lose that one moronic shot and the film gains about 20 IQ points and could add a couple years to its target audience.
Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.
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