This movie gets off to a cracking start with, arguably, the most harrowing plane crash put on celluloid. From this point on, however, it all gets a bit disappointing. The characters are very poorly observed with thinly sketched profiles and considerable confusion as to their various motivations although there is a tiresome and droll repetetive mystical theme which seems to pop up every time the logical plot falls down. Quite what John Malkovich is doing eulogising at the start about "finding God on the mountain" is anybody's guess. What these poor lads did find however was a taste for human flesh, but even here the cannibal theme is not fully explored nor examined apart from during one scene where key protagonists waffle briefly about the soul not being the same thing as the body. The logical flaws are more inexcusable. The climate seems to vary from the depths of the Arctic to a warm summers day and why, oh why, do none of the men develop any real beards in over 90 days in the wilderness? A trite point maybe, but one that echoes the flaws in the film. The visuals however are superb and somehow the film manages to become greater than the sum total of its parts. Strangely haunting but with mystical pretensions way beyond its intellectual scope.
Review of Alive
