Inside Pulse Review – Eight Below

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(Credit: www.impawards.com)

Director:

Frank Marshall

Cast:

Paul Walker……….Gerry Shepard
Bruce Greenwood……….Davis McLaren
Moon Bloodgood……….Katie
Jason Biggs……….Charlie Cooper
Gerard Plunkett……….Dr. Andy Harrison
August Schellenberg……….Mindo
Wendy Crewson……….Eve McClaren

Walt Disney Pictures in association with Spyglass Entertainment presents Eight Below. Written by Dave DiGilio. Suggested by the film Nankyoku Monogatari (Antarctica). Running time: 120 minutes. Rated PG (for some peril and brief mild language).

Last year a little film about penguins made a huge splash in theaters and was loved by audiences both young and old. Well, with the success of March of the Penguins movie studios are looking to attract that same kind of business and audience. Walt Disney is the first out of the gate with Eight Below. If one were to sell the film to an executive he’d probably say it’s like Penguins but with sled dogs.

The dogs are great. The cinematography is amazing. The snow-covered vistas are eye-poppingly beautiful. The problem is the plot. The film is two different movies in one. It tries to be part survival story and part rescue tale. The scenes with the dogs are the best, it’s just a shame they have to share screen time with humans.

Paul Walker still sports the same accent that he has had since Varsity Blues as he plays Gerry, a resident guide and expedition leader for researchers who need his services. When he isn’t on the job, he spends his days at the home base playing cards with his friend Charlie (Jason Biggs) and his sled dogs.

Gerry is not a guy who would put them or anyone else in harms way. He is meticulous at his job. He surveys the path he will travel when a researcher requires his services. Right before winter sets in, he agrees to take Dr. David McLaren (Bruce Greenwood) to a location that he did not have the opportunity to inspect. This is no fault of his, because the doctor wanted to keep his whereabouts hidden from researchers looking for the same object – a Mercurian meteorite lodged somewhere in the rim and frost along Mount Melbourne.

Venturing into the vast whiteness of Antarctica, the two encounter soft patches of ice, but nothing neither Gerry nor his dogs can’t handle. As an impending storm approaches, McLaren has just enough time to find his little meteorite. How convenient. But as he makes his way back to the sled, he loses his footing and falls down a steep cliff. The dogs pull McLaren out of an icy ravine to safety. Fighting frostbite and hypothermia, Gerry rushes the doctor to home base. Rumored to be the worst winter storm in quite some time, Katie (Moon Bloodgood), the resident pilot, and the rest of the humans evacuate Antarctica. The dogs remain at the base and have to suffer through the storm alone.

The piercing winds and ferocity of the harsh cold makes it near impossible for anyone to get back to the dogs. They are on their own. Can they survive a long Antarctic winter?

The dogs wait patiently for their master to return. After a few days, though, separation anxiety begins to seep in. They break away from their chains and collars and go exploring the land that’s far below any other. Days turn to weeks, weeks into months, and the dogs are still fending for themselves. At the same time, Gerry is in the United States and racked with guilt that he can’t go back to get his dogs. Frank Marshall, the director, should have spent more time with the dogs because their little nuances and interaction with nature is downright pleasing. Instead, as we get acquainted with a particular dog, we are whisked away to more of Paul Walker and his attempts to get back to them.

Paul Walker is not a great actor by any means but the women sure adore his blue eyes and love looking at him. It seems that Mr. Walker keeps giving the same performance in each movie he does. That said, by all accounts, as an expedition leader he seems out of place. Maybe he would be more comfortable behind the wheel of a fast automobile (The Fast and the Furious).

Since Eight Below is inspired by a true story that appeared in a National Geographic issue, I wonder why the filmmakers didn’t shoot it documentary style. Having never read the article, I can only assume that humans did not keep a record of what the dogs experienced. This is a fictionalized work, but as a documentary there could be a heightened sense of realism. A few years ago, a film entitled Touching the Void was a documented reenactment of one mountain climber’s struggle to survive after he shattered his leg in a calamitous fall down a ridge. It was an extraordinary and inspiring tale of one man’s survival.

If told in this fashion, Marshall’s film would be one of the best for the first-half of 2006. We would get another inspiring tale of survival, this time with dogs, and maybe Morgan Freeman could lend his voice again. In any event, the film is far from perfection but instills in us the belief that dogs are truly man’s best friend.

Travis Leamons is one of the Inside Pulse Originals and currently holds the position of Managing Editor at Inside Pulse Movies. He's told that the position is his until he's dead or if "The Boss" can find somebody better. I expect the best and I give the best. Here's the beer. Here's the entertainment. Now have fun. That's an order!