Okay, what's good about this movie?

Rating: 2/10 (10 March 2012)

The lovely scenery. That's it.
This is Sean Penn's valentine to a dead, spoiled rich boy-brat's pretensions. Nothing more. McCandless was a cold hearted, selfish creature who seems to have thought that everything should be all about his wants and needs. He whined about how sick our twisted society was and made no attempt to correct anything. He simply scooted off into the back country, where he traveled about, got beaten up, and finally died a needless, useless death.
The one person I found interesting was the railroad bull. Undoubtedly, we were meant to see him as a violent, savage support for the evil old society That Poor Chrissy so righteously despises. I've worked on a railroad and the bulls know what they're up against: many of these freeloaders are not the cheery, story telling hobos of yor-- many are ruthless professional criminals who will kill somebody for five bucks. The bull doesn't necessarily enjoy what he does but he does it because it must be done to protect the railroad, us (think of the merchandise you buy that travels by train,) himself and yes, idiots like Hirsch's McCandless, who never think of how dangerous riding the rails can be.
And in the end, the movie McCandless' journey ended as did the odyssey of the real one-- a miserable, pointless death in the middle of nowhere.
One thing that amuses me is how Chris' worshipers like to blather about how, unlike so many of us, he wasn't content with the 9-5 routine in our allegedly sick society, he lived his life the way he wanted, the way it was meant to be lived, etc., as if the path he took is the only authentic one. And of course, the ones who rant the loudest against our technological society in the process do so while using a computer to post on the Internet. Thus proving that they are hypocritical fools perfectly matched to the arrogant McCandless, a kid with very little to be arrogant about.