A cautionary tale....

Rating: Null/10 (17 August 2011)

The movie was well done, the cinematography was excellent and James Franco's performance was a tour-de-force. The movie fills out it's running time quite well, considering you find Aron stuck in the crevice canyon only 30 minutes into the film. The following hour consists first of his struggles to get free, and then, as the elements, and lack of food and water begin to take it's toll, hallucinatory sequences predominate. Much as you'd expect. The "scene" where he finally frees himself was suitably gruesome and rather hard to watch. Sound effects added greatly to the tense and visceral nature of the scene. After he frees himself, the rest of the movie is kind of anticlimactic. If you read accounts of the real life event this movie was based on, you know he makes it, and the rest of the movie deflates like a released balloon for that reason.
The problem I had with the film was not in the film itself, but in the almost staggering arrogance and stupidity of the hero the story is based on. I am a caver, and it is a sport or outdoor activity as it were that is similar in one sense to mountain biking or rappeling in the desert. You don't go ANYWHERE without letting someone know where you will be going to, and when you will be back. Just in case. It is (or should be) engraved in your soul. If you don't take that one simple rule to heart, you are an accident waiting to happen. As a result, the whole premise of what an intrepid explorer and resourceful person the hero is was kind of lost on me. The film tries hard to paint him as a heroic figure with an almost superhuman endurance and a man far more resourceful than MacGyver ever dreamed of being on his best day. But.
If only he had a brain.
The good news is, he has one now, as the information on the end credits help to illustrate. Too many kids think of themselves as ten feet tall and bulletproof. Perhaps that's where the film's true value lies. Perhaps it will help to show them they are not.
The only problem is most all of those kids will never see this movie. They'll all be too busy watching the latest Transformer epic, or movies of its ilk. Shallow, superficial crap. Too bad....
I was too busy marvelling how a young man so obviously intelligent could be so stupid at the same time, and so his adventures stuck in the crevice just played for me like a cheap Darwin Awards episode in a desert milleu. Only drug out for an hour. A long, interminable hour. You knew what was coming, only you just wanted for them to get on with it. For that reason, I could not truly enjoy it on its own merits fully. That took the edge off the movie for me, because of its subject matter.
But I'm weird like that. One thing for sure, it is not a movie for all tastes. But for those who go in for survivalist movies, it is a hidden gem. James Franco should have gotten an Oscar for this, and this role should open some doors for him.
I just hope he plays someone I like more next time.