September 12, 2006
You'll never guess who survives!
Monday, September 11 6:15 PM PARAMOUNT 3
Remember how great The Abyss was? That great sci-fi survival flick where they were cut off from the rest of the world and there was... something else out there with them? That's exactly how awesome this movie is, for all the same reasons, except that (get this) this movie has an even better ending!
Set in the near future, the Americans have opened up northern Alaska for oil drilling in the search for "energy independance". Ron Perlman (always fantastic) plays The Industrialist, his enormous screen prescence makes him great as "the guy who's in charge". James LeGros plays The Treehugger, an environmentalist brought on board so they can say they've got an independant watching over the whole process. In reality, although he can see all kinds of things going wrong there's almost nothing he can do about it. He really channels a good David Suzuki and you know without being told that he's got a lot going on that he doesn't let on about.
So this team is up in the far northern reaches of Alaska, trying to get an ice road built to the important sites where they plan on drilling test wells. They're falling behind due to... problems. It's too warm, you see. You get to know everyone on the team as they attempt to deal with all sorts of difficulties, from mechanical to inter-personal. This all set in the beautifully stark landscape of the far north. Actually Iceland, but it works great for the purposes of the film.
Slowly their links to the rest of the world disintegrate and everyone starts wondering: Just what exactly is out there?
Brilliantly done from beginning to end, the only criticism I could possible come up with for this movie is that the CGI snowstorm in the tent was of the "obviously CGI" variety. Fix that and I'd have to say we've got a perfect movie here.