Very loosely based on a true story, "Below" is the story of Gerry Shepherd (Walker), whose team of huskies and malamutes are accidentally abandoned in the Antarctic wilderness when an emergency evacuation is forced at the camp. The film chronicles both Shepherd's effort to return to his beloved canines as well as the dogs' adventures fending for themselves in a harsh environment populated by dangerous chasms, ferocious leopard seals and bitter cold.
The film, unfortunately, takes too long getting to the main thrust of its plot, with an overlong opening act following Shepherd and an American geologist (Bruce Greenwood) as they search for a meteorite on an obscure mountain. Much of the film's early dialogue is mechanical and wooden, and in his opening scenes Biggs' canned enthusiasm grates. It is only when the geologist is injured during the expedition that the film begins to pick up, with expertly edited and tensely drawn-out action sequences. At this point, it becomes clear that despite the best efforts of the actors, the dogs are the film's real stars, with the young, rambunctious Max and the patient, intelligent leader Maya the obvious leads.
The dogs' scenes, especially in the second half, are uniformly thrilling, with expertly trained canine performances, heartrending, emotional moments and perfectly constructed action sequences, the best of which pits the dogs against a massive leopard seal. The dogs are emotional and smart -- perhaps too intelligent to ring true. But, in a way, the film's anthropomorphic take on the canines is charming, hailing from a finer era (that is, the 1960s) of animal adventure stories, when movies like "Big Red," "The Incredible Journey" and "Charlie the Lonesome Cougar" charmed both young and adult audiences alike with their quaint, uninflected storytelling. The film is of course overtly melodramatic in its use of Mark Isham's suitably bombastic score, and at times the slow-paced storytelling, which always manages to find the dogs at their most imperiled, is shamelessly mawkish, but only an embittered cynic could reject the genuine emotion conjured by the film's best scenes.
Unfortunately, as with the first half's uninvolving human escapades, the film's second half is plagued by its frequent cuts to Walker's narrative, which is simply not as compelling as that of his dogs. Walker gives a serviceable performance -- he lacks depth, but feels authentic in his characterization. He'll never channel a convincing psychological performance, but like Reeves, he possesses a precise physicality that allows him to evoke a certain range and manner of the American male. Here, his confident, concerned hippie-trash-made-good brought to this reviewer's mind a large cross-section of the Dartmouth male population, which I took as a sign of the performance's authenticity. Special note also goes to accomplished character actor Greenwood ("Capote"), who manages to find a complex humanity in an underwritten part. Biggs, as Walker's goofy cartographer friend, and Moon Bloodgood, as the other half of Walker's perfunctory love subplot, are not bad enough to overwhelm the picture's good qualities.
Shot in wide-screen by the often- employed cinematographer Don Burgess (a frequent collaborator with Robert Zemeckis), the film is visually glorious; its stunning vistas of Antarctica and intimately textured shadows are a sight to behold and surprisingly old-fashioned (in the best way possible). As noted above, the editing is thrilling, though at two hours, the film feels too long, largely due to its inflated first act. Despite its flaws, "Eight Below" is an engaging treat for dog lovers of all ages.
