Alaska - Sfida tra i ghiacci

Chilly Dogs AKA: Kevin Of The North is about a young travel agent named Kevin Manley (Skeet Ulrich) in Canoga Park who receives an inheritance in Alaska. He promptly quits his job and heads up north to to collect on what, no doubt, will be a large sum and he will no longer have to worry about finances again.

Upon getting to Alaska, he learns of a clause his grandfather put in his will (tired cliché anyone?) and has to participate in the Iditarod Dog Race to prove his is man enough to accept his grandfathers inheritance.

There he meets Clive Thornton (Leslie Nielsen), a beautiful young blond (Natasha Henstridge) and the town bully (Lochlyn Munro). All three have their own reasons for wanting Kevin to fail and, thus, he must overcome many obstacles just to make it to the race itself. I'm not sure why I'm spending so much time on the plot, itself, it's merely there for the jokes but that's the surprise. Lately, Lesley Nielsen movies have been pretty darn unfunny and while this movie is not that good, it is pretty funny. Leslie's character Clive was the funniest with his snide comments that you have to be paying attention to to catch. Easily the funniest character in this movie and much better than his next movie Men With Brooms, which was horrible no matter how you look at it. But don't get me wrong, it's no Naked Gun either- far from it, but it gets the job done.

Natasha Henstridge plays Bonnie Livengood, whom they later find out their grandfathers had a horrible history with one another, which hurts their relationship as well. Natasha plays the lead female here very well and I enjoyed her performance in it.

Skeet Ulrich, as Kevin Manley, reminded me so much of Matthew Broderick with his voice, it was amazing, albeit unintentional I'm positive. However, I have never seen him in the clown role before and I think he did fine, considering Will Ferrell or Jim Carrey probably were not in the budget for this one (It's always been a dream of mine for Carrey and Nielsen to make a movie together).

Lochlyn Munro played Ned Parker, the town jerk. He was all right here but could probably be cast better. He didn't seem like a real threat to Kevin at any point and every time I saw him on screen I couldn't get his scene with Julian (John C. McGinley) taking a bath with him in Wagon's East out of my head.

Given the circumstances and what I was expecting to see (explains why it sat on my DVD rack for almost a year) I was pleasantly surprised. 7/10

The other day I rented this movie hoping that I could have some laughs. I was wrong, I loved watching this movie. I laughed from the beginning to the end with the great contribution of Leslie Nielsen who in this film plays as the bad guy. Natasha Henstridge (Species) plays as the lover of Skeet Ulrich. I recommend this movie to the fans of comedy films and I am positively sure that you will like it.

This was a real disappointment...this movie could have been funny if it had good timing. It has the worst timing ever. With people like Rik Mayall and Leslie Nielsen I would think this was going to be a real hit. Rik Mayall being the evil competitor working for Leslie Nielsen. Rik is one of the most tasteless persons in comedy and frankly...That's why I love him. He's one of my favourite comedians. But he should never have played in this movie, cause it's sad sad and sad. The thing that bugs me with this one is that you know they've f...ed it up cause they haven't tried hard enough to be funny. They've just relied on the actors to be funny and the actors on the director. I'm almost positive that is one of the main problems here. Of course it could never have gotten very good with that script, although I fear it's the directors fault mainly why this movie has gone down the drain. It COULD have been better. It really could have. But when Rik and Leslie can't save this..nothing can. It could with a little luck have been a good childrens movie though.

In the Canadian film industry, it's rare to come across a Canadian movie made for theaters that wasn't funded by the government, KEVIN OF THE NORTH being one of those. Actually, in this case the movie was *intended* for theaters, but it doesn't seem to have received a theatrical release. And that is the only smart decision made with the making of this movie. It certainly does not look theatrical-quality, with many scenes looking pretty cheap, due to a number of obvious short-cuts on screen. Skeet Ulrich manages to make an utterly obnoxious and stupid character even *more* obnoxious and stupid as it was written in the screenplay. Leslie Nielsen just goes through the motions, and Henstridge doesn't try at all. But the biggest fault of the movie is that it is remarkably unfunny. Oh, there are a couple of gags that made me (slightly) smile, but the rest of the attempts of humor consist of gross gags, people falling and slipping up, and punchlines you'll see coming long before the director reveals them. Not recommended, unless you want to see an example as to why most Canadians wouldn't be caught dead watching a Canadian film.

Who think to watch Leslie Nielsen will have a great surprise in this movie because Rik Mayall is high point of this silly movie, otherwise could be throw away the DVD but he saves the movie in your funny English's accent, some jokes and playing a villain, Nielsen as a bad guy didn't work, Skeet Ulrich is totally lost in bad smell and Natasha Henstridge works with your beauty only, remains a little of this picture, just Rik Mayall and the funny dogs!!