Avalanche (1999)

A helicopter pilot work with a husband and his wife in the frozen North tagging foxes for the Environmental Protection Agency. When an avalanche hits the group, the husband is killed and ... See full summary »

Director:

Steve Kroschel

Writer:

Steve Kroschel

Stars:

Thomas Ian Griffith, Caroleen Feeney, R. Lee Ermey

Cast

Credited cast:
Thomas Ian Griffith	...	Neal Meekin
Caroleen Feeney	...	Dr. Lia Freeman
R. Lee Ermey	...	Gary
C. Thomas Howell	...	Jack
John Ashton	...	Kemp
Geoffrey Lower	...	Jay Weston
Hilary Shepard	...	Annie (as Hilary Shepard-Turner)
Gary Kasper	...	Tiny
Bill Bacon	...	Larry
John Jabaley	...	Donahue
Brett Baker	...	Peter
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Jeff Babcock	...	Pump Station Engineer
Eva Barrington	...	Secretary
Douglas Fesler	...	Rescue Captain
Jerry Harper	...	Tom

Storyline

A helicopter pilot work with a husband and his wife in the frozen North tagging foxes for the Environmental Protection Agency. When an avalanche hits the group, the husband is killed and only by the pilot's perseverance is the wife saved. Two years later, the wife takes on a corporation which wants to extend an oil pipeline across the tundra above Juneau. She is convinced that this will cause an avalanche on the town. Of course, she is rejected by the corporation executives. She recruits the pilot to try to aid her, but with no success.

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Plot Keywords:

corporation | avalanche | tundra | pipeline | oil | 

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Taglines:

Hell hath no fury like Mother Nature scorned.

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Genres:

Action | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for disaster-related action and peril

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

2 October 1999 (Taiwan)

Also Known As:

Escape from Alaska

Filming Locations:

Palmer, Alaska, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Ian Page Productions, Krsochel Films, PM Entertainment Group

Technical Specs

Runtime:

96 min

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Goofs

Near the end of the movie when the airplane with Neal and Lia is crashing, the first shot of it sliding down the mountain clearly shows the tail broken off, and we also see someone outside/above the cockpit waving their arms, but in the following shots the plane is shown with the fuselage still intact (minus wings only) sliding down the mountain and the cockpit is also still intact with both people inside and in their seats. This is also the way the plane ends up in the crevice.

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Connections

Edited into Ice Queen (2005)

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Soundtracks

NOW NOW
Written by Michèle Vice-Maslin, Michael Garvin and Kim Tribble
Produced and Arranged by Michèle Vice-Maslin, Michael Garvin and Kim Tribble
Published by Even Sweetersongs (SESAC)/Michael Garvin Music (BMI)/Brian's Dream (ASCAP)
Courtesy of Sweetersongs

User Reviews

Disappointing

I read the reviews just after watching the first 15 minutes, and didn't think they were good reviews at the time, because the film had a very good start.

Then the rest of the movie sunk in.

While I don't agree with this being the worst, or even one of the worst, ever, it was very disappointing after a start that looked like it had potential.

We begin with three chief characters, a young couple who are protecting wildlife in Alaska, and their handsome pilot friend. They aren't Grizzly people. They're tagging and watching the cute little animals.

It all begins rather well. They are likable, and their friends seem fairly real. After an avalanche changes the status quo, two years pass, and the pilot has lost a lot of his confidence, which made this look like it was going into a fresh direction.

Well, then it looks like they brought in a new writer named Joe Cliché. It got very trite after that. You would have to watch it to know how trite it became. Unbelievable, after what looked like a decent beginning.

This made the movie more disappointing than everything. I still liked the two leads, because they were worth liking, and that salvaged the movie for at least "treadmill or elliptical" viewing, but it was very corny.

And while I liked to see them survive their brushes with death, I would prefer those escapes to be at least partially credible. We cross over all lines of credibility. And that's disappointing.

I'm too flabbergasted by the clichés to even begin to mention them. If you scratch the first 15 minutes, it might even look like a comic farce.

It's one of those movies in which the people involved probably think they either made something much better, or much worse, than they actually did. When you're involved in a project like this, you don't see the glass as half empty. It's either full or empty. Truth be told, it's less than half full, but still passes for mild entertainment.