Antarctica - Gefangen im Eis

My wife and I went to go this flick in the theater and I would say we were the only folks there without children. We went because we are the proud owners of two huskies ourselves. I urge anyone that is interested in dogs, animals, huskies, Antarctica, whatever, to see this movie. I must say for a Disney movie, it's not as childish as one may think, and there are definitely a few tear-jerking parts for different reasons. I have already noticed the desire growing amongst folks to have huskies in the past year or so, and I bet this movie will only positively influence that. Huskies can be a handful, but they are one of the coolest/smartest breeds you'll ever encounter. I just hope folks will go to Husky Rescue groups, before shelling out hundreds of dollars for breeders. Minor adjustments I would have made are focusing a little more on the dogs survival and less on Paul Walker's mission to get funding. Also, the dogs definitely did not not "talk" as much as our two huskies do : )

Good movie--However, I have been to Antarctica for 2 1 year stretches and a lot was embellished in the movie...of course to make it plausible to the masses. You would never see the sun during the Antarctic winter. It is dark down there--the sun dips below the horizon in late March and does not come back until August. BUT I guess Hollywood would have had a hard time filming in the dark, right?? I've actually been to Bailey's in Cheech (Christchurch) and that looked authentic. SO did the outside of the hospital in McMurdo. I would recommend this movie to anyone who wants a better understanding of life in the field camps down there--some of it was true but the majority of it was well thought by the makers of this film!

I went begrudgingly to see this film with my daughter. It was not on my list of films to see but she insisted. Knowing that it was a Disney product only made me dread it more. The schlock they try to pass off as good films these days is ridiculous. The only up-side I could see was the director, Frank Marshall. He has produced some of my favorite films. Let's see what he can do behind the camera.

Pleasantly surprised I think is a good term for my reaction. Although the film was about 20 minutes too long, it did sustain the action and drama all the way through. I knew the basics of the story: a team at a base in Antartica must evacuate and cannot take the sled dogs with them. Winter sets in and the dogs are forced to survive on their own in the brutal cold for months.

The dogs are very entertaining and their scenes with the science team are warm and amusing, even thrilling. Where I expected the film to fail was after the humans and dogs separate. Amazingly though, this is where the Mr. Marshall seemed to kick it into gear. Watching the opposing scenes unfold of the guilt-ridden Paul Walker frantically trying to find anyone to help him get back down to the Antartic, interlaced with the Huskies who are struggling through the rough winter, scrounging for food and defending each other from predators, was very emotional.

While the film is a grade A survival pic, I hadn't expected it to be such a tear-jerker. Be forewarned. Although the human performances (Paul Walker, Bruce Greenwood and the necessary romantic lead, Moon Bloodgood) were mediocre at best, the canine actors really do steal your heart.

No Oscar material here, but as far as family films go these days, this one is above par. Grade: B

Poetic license is some thing, but changing reality to make an absolutely impossible story seem plausible is another. The writers obviously need better advisers about Antarctic travel. Here are just a few of the errors. They show the dogs running when pulling the sled. They would kill them in short order. Real sleds dog simply walk at a very fast pace bordering on a trot. Real Antarctic travelers don't try to travel through storms. They just wait them out in a nice warm tend. Now lets get into science fiction. Bruce Greenwood falls through ice into water. Where exactly would you find water on Antarctica? The ice is several thousand feet thick. (While on the subject of water, where exactly did the dogs find any water to drink?) There are no birds in the interior of Antarctica in the winter and none even on the coast in winter. But lets get to the biggest absurdity bright sunny days in June and July. Huh? There is almost 24 darkness at that time of year. I hate it when they claim that a story is based on reality and the present something that is obvious complete and utter fiction. Am I missing the point but dewelling on these gross distortions of anything faintly resembing reality? Well, if you have a story that consists of nothing more than contrived emotional manipulation using a pack of dogs, you could at least get give the setting and circumstances some semblance of reality rather than turning the world upside down to confirm.

The acting in this movie is weak. Now that I got that out of the way, let me tell you why this film is worth watching: the outdoor photography and the dogs. This movie contains some of the most impressive outdoor cinematography that one can hope or expect to see in a Hollywood movie. This movie shows the awesome and forbidding beauty of icebergs, ice flows and glacier-covered mountains. Compared to these magnificent edifices of nature, man is rendered almost utterly insignificant, a mere dot in a wilderness of ice that is almost endless. Indeed, the scenery is spectacular. That's one interesting part of the movie. But the main part of the movie are the dogs - eight of them. This movie offers a wonderful story about eight brave and stalwart creatures that are determined to survive in the polar wilderness. Having been abandoned by their owner, the dogs must fend for themselves, and they do so, by staying together, working as a team, looking out for each other and caring for each other. They set an example for us humans to follow. That's why this is a movie that's not about us, but about those wonderful dogs.