Hey folks, Harry here.. Massawyrm has been sending in reviews this year while testing a rare early model Klingon cloaking device. This was the first one that got to my eyes. So here you go, that Dog movie. Apparently he kinda liked it. Here ya go...
Hola all. Massawyrm here. Okay, I’m just going to come right out and admit this. The movie I’ve been most anticipating over the past month, the movie I’ve most been both equally excited and frightened of is Disney’s new live action adventure film Eight Below. Yes, yes, I know. I was excited about a Paul Walker film. So what if I happen to enjoy busting up Paul Walker more than anyone else I know? So what if I take jabs at him in reviews of movies in which he doesn’t actually appear? Is that something to really get excited about? No. Really, it has nothing to do with that. I was genuinely amped up to go see this movie, so much so that I decided to skip the press screening later this week and shell out $8.25 in order to see it four days early. Yes, yes. I know. I paid to see a Paul Walker film. And I’m likely to once again flush my credibility down the toilet. Because not only was I excited to see a Paul Walker movie, not only did I pay to see a Paul Walker movie, but as it turns out, I actually really liked a Paul Walker movie. Credibility, meet the Austin Waste Management system.
So what the hell was I so damned excited about anyway? Well, you see, I’m an old school Disney fan. Like many of you I grew up on live action Disney fare, and unlike most of you, actually loved their live action films better than their animated classics. Escape to Witch Mountain. The Gnome Mobile. The Devil and Max Devlin. The Apple Dumpling Gang. Flight of the Navigator. In my youth, there was no better time of the week than Saturday night’s Wonderful World of Disney on ABC. And one of my absolute favorites from that era was a little film titled ‘Charlie, the Lonesome Cougar’, a 1967 film entirely about a the misadventures of a friendly cougar wandering from place to place getting into as much trouble as possible. Whether hunting for food, encountering other animals or being adopted by firemen, Charlie never spoke a word. No thoughts were put in his head and no electrodes were hooked up to him to elicit mouth movements to be dubbed over. Only Rex Allen’s narration (also the narrator for Charlotte’s Web) and the actors he encountered gave a voice to the film. But the film wasn’t about them – the film was entirely about Charlie. And man I loved that film. Hell, I still love it now. And upon viewing the trailer for Eight Below for the first time, a strange thing happened. While I was laughing my ass off for the first half, the second half grabbed me by the shirt and said “Stop fucking laughing! This looks really fucking cool!” I instantly began wondering “Did Disney wise up? Did the success of a fucking national geographic film convince Disney that families don’t need talking animals to be entertained?” I was dying to know. You see, while my buddies were stunned at my interest in the film, I was unwavering. Trailers lie. They lie a lot. Was Disney pulling a fast one and tricking people into believing this was a film about humans with dogs, when really this was a film about dogs with humans? I was dying to find out.
I mean, if this WAS what they were doing, they sure picked a perfect story for it – an Antarctic wilderness guide is forced to leave his pack of sled dogs behind in a terrible storm, leaving them to fend for themselves in an alien wilderness for six months with no food or shelter. Just Eight dogs forced to work together to survive, or die trying. Sounds fucking perfect. So is that what Disney delivered?
Sadly, no. Not exactly. Eight Below was not the movie I dreamed of, but actually turned out to be pretty freaking good anyhow. A remake (or as the credits note “Inspired by”) of the 1982 Japanese film Nankyoku Monogatari (titled ‘Antarctica’ here in the states), Eight Below focuses mostly upon the Sled Dog team leader, played by Paul Walker. While I personally felt there was too much focus on the human actors in the film, that sprung entirely from my desire to see an animal centric film. I was never bored by the human elements, and in fact quite enjoyed them, but was absolutely floored by the twenty to thirty minutes we spend with the sled team alone. The sequences of the dogs trying to survive are perfectly executed. They are at times sweet, heartbreaking and exciting. Director Frank Marshall and the dog trainers on this film deserve the highest of praise for these sequences, as they manage to elicit genuine, complex emotions from the dogs without a single word of voice over, without a single CG adjustment to facial expressions and without making them say a single god damned thing. They take a pack of dogs and make them readily identifiable as characters with distinct personalities, histories and even character arcs. Whether working out strategies to hunt for food, battling a Leopard Seal over the corpse of a Killer Whale or grieving for their dead (yes, they have the balls to make an adventure film in which not everyone makes it) these animals have entire conversations played out entirely with body language and barks. This is the language of cinema at its very best. And frankly, I’m more than just a little pissed off that with the talent that made this and the love that clearly went into this, that this nearly two hour film wasn’t entirely about the dogs. Whether it was a Disney BigWig, the screenwriter or Frank Marshall himself that decided to focus more on Paul Walker than the dogs, well, I have a metal folding chair I’d like to introduce to the back of their skull. They gave me a half an hour of the movie I really wanted to see. But you know what, I’ll take it. Because despite not being entirely what I wanted to see, it really was pretty good.
Frank Marshall not only manages to elicit very human performances out of the dogs, but even gets one out of Paul Walker. Whether the fact that being surrounded by an arctic wasteland made his stiff acting seem natural for that climate or whether Marshall just knew how to get a real performance out of him, I actually felt for Walker’s Gerry Shepherd. He really displays a genuine loss and guilt for leaving his ‘family’ behind. Here’s a guy who actually relates better to animals than he does people, which is perfect as Walker’s never shown a propensity for dealing with people on screen very well. However, Marshall actually manages to prevent him from ever uttering the word “Bro”, which would seem to be the one tool in Walker’s acting arsenal but instead forces him to dig deep and actually deliver something solid. Not great, but actually believable. As the old saying goes – Every Keanu Has His Day.
Backing him up is Jason Biggs, who proves that he’s mastered the funny idiot routine by playing Paul Walker’s dumbass best friend (because what would a Paul Walker movie be without someone really idiotic to make him look like the smart one?) And Biggs is genuinely funny, getting more than a couple real gut laughs out of me with his deadpan delivery. But when you put Walker and Biggs in a film together, you have to bring out the big guns and add a touch of class to balance things out. Enter veteran class act, Bruce Greenwood, who does just that.
All in all, this is a terrific family film – one of those rare treats that sneaks out the back door at Disney and actually turns out to be something really good. Sure, I wish this had been entirely about the dogs, but what Marshall delivers turns out to be a really good film in its own right. This is one of those really solid family films in which everyone walks out with a different favorite character – all of which are the dogs. But this film is definitely a tearjerker – so people with overly sensitive children might want to take heed to avoid “Old yeller” Syndrome. While I didn’t actually cry, the movie brought me close on more than one occasion – and there’s something to be said about that, as I’ve cried at only a handful of movies in my life. Others in the theatre, however, were less stoic. A definite must see for dog lovers or anyone with animal loving children. Sweet and unflinching, this will be a movie I’ll be recommending to friends and family for quite some time.
Until next time friends, smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em. I know I will.
Massawyrm
Send your sweaty jockstraps here, your scent thrills me!
