Memorable, crazy movie

Fresh and Exciting

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

While searching for their missing father in the mountains of Alaska, two siblings come across a baby polar bear on the run from a pair of poachers. Alaska is a 90's kids movie and a pretty decent one. The perfomances were quite alright nothing to really brag off on that scale, the cinematography quite beautiful and with alot of very good looking shots of rivers and basically the mountains and all that. The storyline quite interesting too and if you're not expecting some really oscar worthy or whatever you might actually very much enjoy it as well as i did. (7/10)

The Alaska scenery in this movie is spectacular and varies: sea, rivers, mountains, snow, rock, skies, shot with sweeping helicopter and crane shots.But the soundtrack is embarrassing: like something out of the Ten Commandments, great blaring trumpets, soaring strings, Tibetan bass horns, South American flutes, tom toms, fanfares, all preposterously overblown like something of a bygone era. It was seriously distracting.The dialog is silly, like something out of 50's cowboy and Indian dramas e.g. "Trust the bear" and "Dad, can we keep him?" The movie has no subtlety. Everything is spelled out with the explicitness of a TV sitcom.The plot is utterly improbable, with various anomalies that distress, like packing no more than a sandwich for a four day hike without it turning into a problem. Even the bear finds a adoptive mother, something that never happens in real life. No bad guys were harmed in the making of this movie.Cubby the orphaned polar bear cub is the star of the show, sort of like Wookie in Star Trek, who repeatedly saves the day from the evil poachers. It is a bit like the old Rin Tin Tin adventures, only Cubby is much cuter.However, the movie far from boring. I could not help but fear for the actors creating the film because they do so many dangerous stunts. Kids or adults without problems suspending disbelief will most enjoy this film.

Alaska is one of those films that is just there. There is nothing groundbreaking involved in it, but there is nothing offensive about it either. Directed by Fraser Clark Heston, Alaska tells the story of a father, Jake (Dirk Benedict), and his two kids, who lived in the lower 48 states until Jake's wife died and the family moves to Alaska, for the reason of making this movie it looks like. If the director's name looks vaguely familiar, it's because Fraser's daddy is an actor named Charlton, who also plays a polar bear poacher (imagine that, Charlton Heston wielding a gun, what are the odds?). Jake flies airplanes, and of course on one of his trips, the plane goes down, and it is up to his two kids Jessie (Thora Birch) and Sean (Vincent Kartheiser) to find him. With the help of a baby polar bear, the kids go out into the Alaskan wilderness, meet bear poachers, Eskimos, and other fun things. Alaska is an OK movie, nothing that will make you wish you hadn't seen it, just don't expect the Ten Commandments.

The above line, which is actually spoken in "Alaska", should be enough for you to decide whether this is your type of film or (hopefully) not, but let me just add a few more details. They say that when a music score calls attention to itself it's either very good or very bad. The score of "Alaska" falls into the latter category: it's an insultingly overemphatic piece of work that is constantly telling you what you're supposed to be feeling (awe, danger, joy, mysticism). Apart from that, the story is dull, since you always know that everything will turn out all right in the end, and the bear cub is way too cute - its "assistance" in the climax is a real groaner. All this film has going for it are some dangerous and well-performed physical stunts. (**)