EIGHT BELOW

Director: Frank Marshall (Pretty Woman, Congo, produced Raiders of the Lost Ark, much more)
Starring: Paul Walker, Bruce Greenwood, Moon Bloodgood, Jason Biggs

I can’t really prove this, but I think that Disney created the courageous live-action anthropomorphic animal adventure somewhere back in the 60s or 70s. At least I remember a fair number of films of the ilk back in that era. They usually seemed to involve a dog, a cat and a duck getting left behind and having to find their family in Oregon or some such. There was also the odd grizzly bear or cougar struggling to feed their cubs type pics, but I liked them all as a kid. I’ve always been an outdoorsy kind of guy and I enjoy seeing the wilds of America, and really, who doesn’t like dog, cat and duck adventures?

Now we’re in 2006, though, and cute animals in the wonderful wilderness just isn’t enough. Now we need extreeeeeme courageous live-action anthropomorphic animal adventures. Eight below is the story of Huskie dogs surviving on their own in Antarctica for months and months (and months), and it’s very, very extreeeeeme.

Here is the plot: Man in Antarctica science station takes scientist out with his sled dogs. The dogs save the scientist's life when the foolish scientist doesn’t know as much about surviving in this extreeeeeme environment as the hyper-intelligent doggies do. A horrible storm hits Antarctica and doggies are left behind when everyone at the science station leaves for the winter. The doggies break their chains, develop advanced hunting techniques, battle extreeeeeemely evil CGI monsters and stuggle to survive. (By the way, not all of them make it, if you’re the crying type …)

You probably thought I just slipped in that “battling evil CGI monsters” bit as a joke, but you’re wrong. They really do fight nefarious digital creatures. It was a surprising twist to the movie.

Anyway, eventually Man, and the scientist the doggies saved earlier, come back to rescue the doggies and find that they’ve survived 863 days on their own in Antarctica (or something like that). It’s astounding.

As these flicks go, I preferred the old cutsie anthropomorphic animal adventures (Benji or the already discussed dog,cat,duck trio) over this new breed of extreeeeeme movie, but I can’t really complain too much. This film was moderately enjoyable, pretty much succeeded in doing what it was trying to do, and, you know, was extreme and all. I enjoyed the human parts much more than the middle of the film where the dogs created their own little canine society in the snow, but in the end I can only say that this film was what it was: A professionally done job of making a kids' movie. It really wasn’t bad.

Standouts: Anything Extreme.
Blowouts: The horrible CGI monster and the doggies' hyper-intelligent planning.

Grade: C+