Avis Metacritic

Despite being broadly classified as an "adventure", it has depth and breadth that would put many dramas to shame. Well-produced, acted, and scripted, this is a film that has to be seen to be experienced, even by those who know the entire story.

Alive draws considerable power from staying more human than heroic.

Alive is no Oscar-challenger, certainly, but it does treat a very dicey incident with the even-keeled direction the story deserves.

WQhat would it really be like to huddle in a wrecked aircraft for 10 weeks in freezing weather, eating human flesh? I cannot imagine, and frankly this film doesn't much help me.

Not exactly light entertainment and it can drag in places but when the drama is cranked up, it really works.

As engrossing as it is, the movie still tells only half the story: the other, nobler half.

Despite much fervent talk of the beauty of the mountains and the closeness of God, Alive peters out. [25 Jan 1993, p.55]

Marshall is a good technician, but there's no sense of artistic adventure in his sometimes exciting, sometimes draggy movie.

In this touching story of boy toys helping boy toys, it's almost impossible to root for characters who are dead in the first place.

Frankly, those wonderfully corny old high-in-the-sky Airport movies were more dramatically satisfying than this, a barren adaptation of Piers Paul Read's nonfiction bestseller, directed by Frank Marshall.