ALASKA
A film review by Scott Renshaw
Copyright 1996 Scott Renshaw
Starring: Thora Birch, Vincent Kartheiser, Dirk Benedict, Charlton Heston. Screenplay: Andy Burg, Scott Myers. Director: Fraser C. Heston. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
ALASKA is about as basic as film-making gets, and that is not entirely a criticism. Disney used to make a series of films called "True Life Adventures," wilderness yarns chock full of great scenery, cute critters and just enough Darwinian conflict not to be alarming to the little ones in the audience. Those films were basic -- a vista, an animal, a fight, repeat -- but most of the time they were also effective. That is the vibe ALASKA is looking for, and might actually have matched if it hadn't had so many darned humans. There is some lively adventure in ALASKA, but when most of the real fun comes on four legs, it is difficult not to lose patience with the two-legged cast members.
ALASKA stars Thora Birch and Vincent Kartheiser as Jessie and Sean Barnes, teen-aged siblings recently re-located from Chicago to the small Alaskan fishing village of Quincy after the death of their mother. Their father Jake (Dirk Benedict), a former commercial airline pilot, now runs an air taxi service, and it is on one of his runs that he encounters a fierce storm and crashes. Search and rescue teams are unable to locate him, but Sean and Jessie refuse to give up on their father, and set out themselves determined to find him. What they find first is a wilderness full of dangers, including treacherous climbs, white waters and a nasty wildlife poacher named Perry (Charlton Heston). They also find a friend in an orphaned polar bear cub who joins them on their journey and becomes a sort of spirit guide.
I won't waste too much time on the trite and silly elements of ALASKA, because fortunately scripters Andy Burg and Scott Myers do us the same favor. The film's set-up is a riff on FREE WILLY, with a troubled youth (Sean is annoyed about his new home), a bond with a lovable animal and even a dash of Native American mysticism; it also provides the well-worn trope of the lost parent. Vincent Kartheiser does the surly bit with a bit more obnoxiousness than one might hope for, and Thora Birch (the young Melanie Griffith in NOW AND THEN) makes a generic smarter younger sister, but they are on a par with the rest of the acting in ALASKA. It even has the best bad actor in screen history as its villain (who, coincidentally enough, happens to be the director's father). And yes, it does perplex me how Sean made it through three days of rock climbing, wading in icy rivers and plodding through the frozen tundra in his Adidas high-tops.
No, the problem with ALASKA isn't that the people are one-dimensional characters or mediocre actors. The problem is that they are people. The reactions of the children (and parents) all around me told me exactly what they wanted to see every time Cubby the polar bear was on the screen. Even after Coke has turned computer-generated frolicking polar bears into a corporate logo, the real thing is still adorable; I dare anyone not to smile ad a cuddly cub doing a belly slide down a snowy embankment. That bear is sympathetic and entertaining in a way his human co-stars can never hope to be, and he is the real star of ALASKA. He just doesn't have any supporting players.
That points up a significant drawback in a film which is supposed to be a wilderness adventure, namely that there is not enough wilderness, especially in the first half. There is plenty of photography of majestic locations (of a strangely flat variety by cinematographer Tony Westman), but Fraser C. Heston doesn't quite know what to do with it. It is fine for a family adventure like ALASKA to turn in only a rudimentary plot provided it delivers the thrills, and they finally start coming with about half an hour left. That last half hour is very exciting, though, with a white water sequence as impressive as anything in THE RIVER WILD and a literal cliff-hanger of a climax. By then, over 70 minutes into ALASKA, young viewers could be getting might restless.
The last shots in ALASKA find our polar bear hero trotting off with two other bears to form a happy adoptive family. _That's_ a story I really would have enjoyed, and I couldn't help wondering why ALASKA hadn't tripled its polar bear content much earlier.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 bear necessities: 5.
-- Scott Renshaw Stanford University http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~srenshaw
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