Alive
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Movie Reviews of Alive
Movie Review: Alive is real
Summary: 5 Stars
From the days when I worked in a movie theatre, this movie still dawns on me as one of the best live to tell stories of all time. Buy it, rent it see it...Movie Review: Alive DVD
Summary: 5 Stars
The product arrived in a timely manner and in very good condition. We have not had time to watch it yet but I am sure the quality is satisfactory.Movie Review: ALIVE
Summary: 5 Stars
Very good movie!! Really makes you think what you would have done if that happend to you. What you do to stay ALIVE!!!!Movie Review: Dignified account of true events
Summary: 4 Stars
ALIVE
(USA - 1992)
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Theatrical soundtrack: Dolby Digital
In 1972, members of a Uruguayan rugby team are trapped in the Andes when their charter plane crashes in the mountains, killing many of those on board. Unable to overcome their situation any other way, the survivors are forced to contemplate the unthinkable - to eat the dead...
Though the cannibalism aspect of this extraordinary true story had formed the backbone of an earlier exploitation movie (René Cardona's opportunistic Mexican thriller SURVIVE! [1976]), Frank Marshall's dignified Hollywood version takes its cue from Piers Paul Read's bestselling literary account and places a deliberate emphasis on the survivors' spiritual response to their circumstances. Opening with a horrific plane crash (an effects tour de force) which locates the audience at the heart of an appalling catastrophe, the script - by John Patrick Shanley (ARACHNOPHOBIA) - manages to keep repetition at bay by foregrounding a series of moral dilemmas (food rationing, medical priorities, the will to survive at all costs, etc.), though Shanley's dialogue often resorts to speech-bubble platitudes ("If we do this [ie. eat the dead], we'll never be the same again") which sounds a little forced and unrealistic.
Handsomely mounted on location in the Canadian Rockies, the film is toplined by some of Hollywood's brightest (and most photogenic) young talents, including Ethan Hawke (DEAD POETS SOCIETY), Josh Hamilton (THE HOUSE OF YES) and Vincent Spano (CITY OF HOPE), with capable support from Jack Noseworthy (CECIL B. DEMENTED), John Haymes Newton (TV's "Superboy"!), and Illeana Douglas (GRACE OF MY HEART) as one of the few female survivors of the initial disaster. Though pretentious at times, and perhaps a little too leisurely for its own good, the movie pays tribute to the power of the human spirit and is often deeply moving. Beautiful score by James Newton Howard (M. Night Shyamalan's composer of choice), with a haunting interpretation of 'Ave Maria' - sung by Aaron Neville - during the final credits.
NB. A similar tragedy befell the so-called 'Donner party' - a group of travellers seeking a new life in California - who became stranded in the Sierra Nevada mountains during the harsh winter of 1846-47 and were forced to cannibalise their dead comrades. Movie adaptations include an excellent feature documentary (THE DONNER PARTY [1992]) by historian Ric Burns in the manner of his acclaimed TV series "The Civil War" (1990), and a sanitized Disney version (ONE MORE MOUNTAIN) helmed by veteran director Dick Lowry in 1994.
Movie Review: Good movie - great story
Summary: 4 Stars
The plot has been described in other reviews. Well acted and directed, this movie recounts a great survival story, comparable to Captain Bligh leading all but one of his crew to safety after about 3500 or so miles in a small open boat (book "Men Against The Sea"), or Richard Byrd surviving the Antarctic while seriously sick and injured (book "Alone").
The fact that anyone even made it through the initial crash, then tobogganing at about 200 MPH down a mountain in a portion of airplane fuselage is unbelievable by itself. Add the fact that many people, prepared about as well as you or I in our living rooms, lived for 70 days way up on a frozen mountainside, makes it even more fantastic.
To top it off, after weeks of planning and preparation, two of the fittest members hike around and down a 13,500 ft mountain, then trek 50 or 60 miles in 10 days through utter exhaustion, to finally reach help.
It is difficult to really imagine the hardship they went through, even though it is essentially laid out on screen. The days or weeks of planning seemingly small events, and meeting with disaster on most accounts (finding the tail portion with the radio batteries, then having to go back to get the radio because the batteries were too heavy to carry, then not being able to fix the radio, etc.) is bad enough. I can not think of anything worse than having to eat your dead friends, for 50 days in a row, to just get through another day.
I'm going to finish the last 20 pages of the book tonight. It has a few more grisly details than the movie, and some failed search-and-rescue details, and maybe a bit more character depth as well, but this is one instance where the movie is nearly as good as the book. Unfortunately, the money apparently ran out near the end of the production, and the ending was a bit rushed and wrapped up just a bit too nicely, when in fact it was an arduous and tortuous experience down the mountain by the 2 men.
If you think YOU have it bad, watch this movie or read the book. Even athiests will thank God it never happened to them.