Alaska (1996 film)

Last updated
Alaska
Alaskaposter1996.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Fraser Clarke Heston
Written byAndy Burg
Scott Myers
Produced by Carol Fuchs
Andy Burg
Starring
CinematographyTony Westman
Edited byRob Kobrin
Music byReg Powell
Production
companies
Distributed by Sony Pictures Releasing
Release date
  • August 14, 1996 (1996-08-14)
Running time
109 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$24 million[ citation needed ]
Box office$11,829,959 [1]

Alaska is a 1996 American adventure survival film directed by Fraser Clarke Heston and produced by Carol Fuchs and Andy Burg. The story, written by Burg and Scott Myers, centers on two children who search through the Alaskan wilderness for their lost father. During their journey, they find a polar bear who helps lead them to their father. However, a poacher with a desire to capture the bear follows close behind the children and the polar bear. The director's father, Charlton Heston, plays the main antagonist. The movie was filmed primarily in the Purcell Mountains of British Columbia in Canada and the city of Vancouver. The film was a box office bomb, grossing only $11,829,959 over a $24 million budget. It received negative reviews upon its release.

Contents

Plot

Jake Barnes is flying a plane over the Alaskan wilderness. While he is flying, he is communicating with a man named Charlie, who works for Quincy Air Service. A polar bear cub and its mother are then shown playing in the snow, not knowing that they are being watched by a pair of poachers, Colin Perry and Mr. Koontz, and the adult bear is then shot, leaving the cub orphaned.

Jake's daughter Jessie and her friend Chip are observing wildlife in their kayaks before her dinner. Jake begins telling her where he is flying from, at what time he left that location, and his air speed. Jessie calculates that her father is passing Devils Thumb. Jake then lands his plane on a lake, where Charlie is waiting to tie the plane up to the dock. His son, Sean scolds his father for moving their family to Alaska after their mother's death. As Jake is making an emergency run, his plane's engines stall, causing him to lose control and crash in the Alaska wilderness. Frustrated by the lack of search effort by the police, Sean and Jessie go out to find their father on their own.

As they kayak through the chilly waters of the Gulf of Alaska, they stop to rest on a beach. They soon realize that the shore is home to a poachers' camp. They then discover the skin of a polar bear and the young polar bear from earlier, that has been locked in a cage. They let the polar bear run free, hoping that it will save itself. After the bear leaves their camp, Colin Perry appears, in hunt of the polar bear that he believes is rightfully his property as he intends to sell the cub to a client in Hong Kong. Koontz then arrives and notices teeth marks on the frying pan, alerting Perry that the bear was there. Colin's beliefs that the children stole the bear from his camp are confirmed when he finds his missing lighter next to their camping gear. Perry orders the kids to tell the bear to "come home" (Perry is referring to the cage at his camp as the bear's home). The next day, Jessie and Sean continue in their search to find their missing father. They leave their kayak and begin searching on foot. They soon discover that the polar bear has once again followed them on their journey. Perry and Koontz, too, have followed the youngsters, and this time, they destroy the oars in their kayak and hide the kayak in the woods just in case someone comes looking for them. Just then, Charlie arrives in a helicopter in search of Jessie and Sean. Perry shows Charlie a piece of the oar and tells him that he found it 25 miles north of their current position. Charlie then departs in his helicopter in hopes of finding the children, who he believes to be in grave danger and eventually discovers the two men were actually poachers after finding their campsite.

Jessie safely reaches the bottom, but Sean slips and tumbles down the mountain, hitting his head on a rock. The two then continue their journey and find a log cabin in the woods. They take shelter and Sean lies down in the bed. While in the cabin, Sean notices a canoe hanging from the ceiling. Jessie and Sean take the canoe and continue on in their search for their father. While they are canoeing down a river, the two kids encounter vicious rapids that send them and their canoe down a waterfall. Jessie is able to escape the raging river but once again, Sean's lack of experience in the wilderness causes him to struggle. He is thrust down the river where he is helped out of the cold water by Jessie's friend Chip and his grandfather Ben. As the kids recover by the riverside, Chip's father wants to send Jessie and Sean home, but Ben and Chip wish to help the two on their journey. The two proceed on their quest with their befriended polar bear, whom they named Cubby, by their side.

Cubby leads them until he is shot with a tranquilizer dart by Colin. He then takes Cubby away in his helicopter, but Koontz didn't load the darts with enough tranquilizer fluids, allowing Cubby to awaken in the helicopter and trying to fight his way free. As Koontz lowers the helicopter, Cubby escapes and bites Perry's right knee, causing Perry to shoot Koontz with a tranquilizer dart and damage the helicopter as well. Meanwhile, the children continue on in their search for their missing father. They stumble upon some wreckage from his plane crash and begin yelling for him to respond. Not able to yell, their father shoots another flare into the air. This time the children see it and run to his rescue. They find the plane hanging on the edge of a cliff, and Jessie lowers Sean down the side of the mountain to reach their father. Just as it looks like Jessie is going to lose control of the rope, Cubby appears and helps Jessie pull the rope. With Cubby's help, Jessie and Sean are able to raise their father up the side of the mountain. Just as the family is reunited, Charlie shows up in his helicopter to take them home and complete the rescue. Perry and Koontz are then shown to be trekking from their now disabled helicopter after their skirmish with Cubby, and Cubby is then introduced to a new polar bear family after saying good-bye to Sean and Jessie.

Cast

Reception

Box office

The film managed to bring in US domestic revenues of only $11,829,959 [1] against a production budget of $24 million.[ citation needed ]

Critical response

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 17% based on reviews from 13 critics, with an average of 4.70 out of 10. [2]

Emanuel Levy of Variety wrote: "Beautiful vistas, Thora Birch and a cute bear can't compensate for the routine story and sloppy direction of this old-fashioned family adventure." [3] Jeff Vice of the Deseret News wrote: "Really bad performances, an awful script straight out of a TV movie of the week and one of the least appealing, most irritating young heroes in recent screen history." [4]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chris McCandless</span> American hiker and explorer (1968–1992)

Christopher Johnson McCandless, also known by his pseudonym "Alexander Supertramp", was an American adventurer who sought an increasingly nomadic lifestyle as he grew up. McCandless is the subject of Into the Wild, a nonfiction book by Jon Krakauer that was later made into a full-length feature film.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Proenneke</span> American naturalist

Richard Louis Proenneke was an American self-educated naturalist, conservationist, writer, and wildlife photographer who, from the age of about 51, lived alone for nearly thirty years (1968–1998) in the mountains of Alaska in a log cabin that he constructed by hand near the shore of Twin Lakes. Proenneke hunted, fished, raised and gathered much of his own food, and also had supplies flown in occasionally. He documented his activities in journals and on film, and also recorded valuable meteorological and natural data. The journals and film were later used by others to write books and produce documentaries about his time in the wilderness.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Timothy Treadwell</span> American bear enthusiast, environmentalist, and documentary filmmaker (1957–2003)

Timothy Treadwell was an American bear enthusiast, environmentalist, documentary filmmaker, and founder of the bear-protection organization Grizzly People. He lived among coastal brown bears in Katmai National Park, Alaska, for 13 summers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Outdoor Book Award</span> Annual literary awards

The National Outdoor Book Award (NOBA) was formed in 1997 as an American-based non-profit program which each year presents awards honoring the best in outdoor writing and publishing. It is housed at Idaho State University and chaired by Ron Watters. It is sponsored by the National Outdoor Book Awards Foundation, Idaho State University and the Association of Outdoor Recreation and Education. As of 2021, awards have been presented in 13 categories, although not all categories are awarded in any given year.

<i>Kangaroo Jack: GDay U.S.A.!</i> 2004 American film

Kangaroo Jack: G'Day U.S.A.! is a 2004 animated action comedy film. It is a sequel to 2003's Kangaroo Jack that is directed by Ron Myrick and Jeffrey Gatrall. Released direct-to-video in 2004, it was produced by Warner Bros. Animation, Castle Rock Entertainment and was distributed by Warner Bros.

<i>Brians Hunt</i> Book by Gary Paulsen

Brian's Hunt is a 2003 young adult novel by Gary Paulsen. It is the fifth and final book in the award-winning Hatchet series, which deals with Brian Robeson, a boy who learns wilderness survival when he is stranded after a plane wreck.

<i>Cabelas Dangerous Hunts 2</i> 2005 video game

Cabela's Dangerous Hunts 2 is a 2005 hunting video game published Activision for PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, and Microsoft Windows. It is a sequel to the 2003 game Cabela's Dangerous Hunts.

Vitaly Aleksandrovich Nikolayenko was a Russian self-educated natural scientist and photographer notable for his extensive research on the ethology of Russian bears. He spent 33 years living with the brown bears native to the Kamchatka peninsula. He was found dead in December 2003 at the Kronotsky state reserve, one of two managed by the federal government, 177 km (110 mi) north of Petropavlovsk. Authorities concluded that the cause of death was an apparent bear mauling.

Pleasant Island is the largest island in the Icy Strait between northern Chichagof Island and the mainland of the Alaska Panhandle. It lies southeast of the mainland city of Gustavus and southwest of the mainland community of Excursion Inlet. Pleasant Island has a land area of 49.192 km², had no population at the 2000 census, Colter Barnes is the only person who lives here.

<i>Into the Wild</i> (film) 2007 American biographical film by Sean Penn

Into the Wild is a 2007 American biographical adventure drama film written, co-produced, and directed by Sean Penn. It is an adaptation of the 1996 non-fiction book of the same name written by Jon Krakauer and tells the story of Christopher McCandless, a man who hiked across North America into the Alaskan wilderness in the early 1990s. The film stars Emile Hirsch as McCandless, Marcia Gay Harden as his mother, William Hurt as his father, Jena Malone, Catherine Keener, Brian H. Dierker, Vince Vaughn, Kristen Stewart, and Hal Holbrook.

<i>Perils of the Wilderness</i> 1956 film by Spencer Gordon Bennet

Perils of the Wilderness is a 1956 American Western serial film directed by Spencer Gordon Bennet and starring Dennis Moore.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grand Canyon of the Stikine</span> Steep-sided canyon carved by the Stikine River in British Columbia, Canada

The Grand Canyon of the Stikine is a 72 km (45 mi) stretch of the Stikine River in northern British Columbia, Canada. It has been compared to the Grand Canyon of the Colorado. The canyon is home to a large population of mountain goats and other wildlife. Officially the canyon is described as unnavigable by any watercraft, however there have been numerous successful descents made by expert whitewater paddlers since the first attempt in 1981. Since it was first attempted, the Grand Canyon of the Stikine has maintained a legendary reputation among whitewater experts as the 'Mt. Everest' of big water expedition whitewater boating against which all other navigable rivers are measured.

Out of the Wild is a Discovery Channel reality television series. The first and second seasons followed volunteers from urbanized backgrounds as they use survival skills in the back-country of Alaska during the fall and winter. The third season saw a relocation of the series to Venezuela, while keeping the same general format of season 2. The series was produced by Ricochet in the first season, and by Pilgrim Films in seasons 2 and 3.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2010 Alaska DHC-3 Otter crash</span>

On August 9, 2010, a privately operated amphibious floatplane crashed near Aleknagik, Alaska, killing five of the nine people on board. The fatalities included former U.S. Senator Ted Stevens, while the survivors included former Administrator of NASA and then-CEO of EADS North America Sean O'Keefe, his son, and future Deputy Administrator of NASA James Morhard.

<i>Mountain Men</i> (TV series) Television series

Mountain Men is an American reality television series on the History channel that premiered on May 31, 2012.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Silka</span>

Michael Alan Silka was an American spree killer who is believed to have murdered nine people in Alaska during May 1984, primarily in the small village of Manley Hot Springs. The spree culminated in a shootout with Alaska State Troopers in the Alaskan wilderness in which Silka was shot and killed. The motives for Silka's actions remain unclear.

<i>Against the Wild</i> 2013 Canadian film

Against the Wild is a 2013 Canadian direct-to-video children's film directed by Richard Boddington and starring CJ Adams, Erin Pitt, Natasha Henstridge and Ted Whittall.

R. T. "Skip" Wallen is an American artist based in the state of Alaska. He is best known for his stone lithographs of Alaskan wildlife and native peoples and for his monumental bronze sculptures. His original prints, watercolors, and small bronzes are found in museums and private collections around the world. His monumental bronze sculptures are found in major institutions and public spaces in the U.S. and Europe. He was one of only two living artists included in the landmark New York Kennedy Gallery exhibit, Alaskan Masters, in 1976. and has had one-man exhibitions of stone lithographs in Europe. He was recognized with an honorary doctorate in the arts in 2006.

<i>Iron Ridge</i> (film) 2008 American film

Iron Ridge is a 2008 American independent wilderness survival drama film written and directed by Stu Brumbaugh. It marked the feature film debut of naturalist and television host Casey Anderson and his bear Brutus. The film was "100% Montana-made", having been shot entirely on location in Montana with a cast and crew entirely from Montana, entirely financed by Montanans.

<i>Legion of Lost Flyers</i> 1939 film directed by Christy Cabanne

Legion of Lost Flyers is a 1939 American B movie drama film directed by Christy Cabanne. It stars Richard Arlen, Andy Devine, and Anne Nagel. Legion of Lost Flyers was released by Universal Pictures on November 3, 1939.

References

  1. 1 2 "Alaska". Box Office Mojo .
  2. "Alaska". Rotten Tomatoes. 1996. Retrieved 2022-06-15.
  3. Levy, Emanuel (12 August 1996). "Alaska". Variety .
  4. Jeff Vice (1 May 2001). "Film review: Alaska". Deseret News.