And then there's the yeah right factor of much of what goes on here where it's obvious that humans will conquer nature and a wild beast. There are a ton of cliched elements in this nature film that has young teen siblings on a mission to find their missing father and being pestered by a growing young polar bear, still in a playful stage but far from a cute little cub. Poacher Chuckles Heston kills mama bear and baby bear is freed by the teens who come across him. (We know he's a him because the puberty aged brother has seen evidence of such.) They try to avoid the bear at first, but this bear will not be ignored. A series of unbelievable situations involving the kids and the stranded father occur, and then there's the legendary Moses and Ben-Hur in bad guy form and a wise and nurturing native Gordon Tootoosis who sets out to find them and dad as well.
The cliched, stereotypical performances by Thora Birch and Vincent Kartheiser are difficult to take at times with sister bossy and impatient and brother stubborn and willful. Not siblings I want to spend nearly two full hours with. Even the majestic scenery gets tiresome after a while with the camera spinning round and round overly dramatically with pounding music obviously trying to manipulate the viewer. Then there's the father whose plane, stuck on the mountain top, starts to descend and literally leaves pop Dirk Benedict hanging on with one hand.
Of course this bear is a magical bear, leading the kids to the range where dad is, and of course Charlton Heston is right on their trail as he spots them following the bear. I love nature and animal films as much as the next person, but I still expect some level of realism, and a good majority of what occurs here is just too absurd to believe. After a while, Heston and his partner are like the two villains in the "Home Alone" movies with Heston aiming a tranquilizer gun at the bear and shooting his partner instead. By this point, it's like watching Wile E. Coyote and Elmer Fudd in cahoots, and I just wanted the film to be over. The title may be "Alaska", but there's absolutely no way any of these characters would survive it in their predicament. There would be a better chance of Mame Dennis's husband Beauregard showing up alive years after falling off those Alps.
The cliched, stereotypical performances by Thora Birch and Vincent Kartheiser are difficult to take at times with sister bossy and impatient and brother stubborn and willful. Not siblings I want to spend nearly two full hours with. Even the majestic scenery gets tiresome after a while with the camera spinning round and round overly dramatically with pounding music obviously trying to manipulate the viewer. Then there's the father whose plane, stuck on the mountain top, starts to descend and literally leaves pop Dirk Benedict hanging on with one hand.
Of course this bear is a magical bear, leading the kids to the range where dad is, and of course Charlton Heston is right on their trail as he spots them following the bear. I love nature and animal films as much as the next person, but I still expect some level of realism, and a good majority of what occurs here is just too absurd to believe. After a while, Heston and his partner are like the two villains in the "Home Alone" movies with Heston aiming a tranquilizer gun at the bear and shooting his partner instead. By this point, it's like watching Wile E. Coyote and Elmer Fudd in cahoots, and I just wanted the film to be over. The title may be "Alaska", but there's absolutely no way any of these characters would survive it in their predicament. There would be a better chance of Mame Dennis's husband Beauregard showing up alive years after falling off those Alps.