# Alaska (1996 film)

Alaska is a 1996 American adventure survival film directed by Fraser Clarke Heston and produced by Carol Fuchs and Andy Burg. The story, written by Burg and Scott Myers, centers on two children who search through the Alaskan wilderness for their lost father. During their journey, they find a polar bear who helps lead them to their father. However, a poacher with a desire to capture the bear follows close behind the children and the polar bear. The director's father, Charlton Heston, plays the main antagonist. The movie was filmed primarily in the Purcell Mountains of British Columbia in Canada and the city of Vancouver. The film was a box office bomb, grossing only $11,829,959 over a $24 million budget. It received negative reviews upon its release.

## Plot

A pilot named Jake Barnes is flying a plane over the Alaskan wilderness delivering toilet paper on behalf of a air company called Quincy Air Service. Meanwhile, a polar bear cub and its mother are shown playing in the snow, not knowing that they are being watched by a pair of poachers named Colin Perry and Mr. Koontz. The mother bear is murdered by Perry while the cub is captured and put into a cage, as Perry intends to sell him alive to a client in Hong Kong for a fortune, despite Koontz insisting that they kill the cub.
Jake's daughter Jessie and her friend Chip are observing wildlife in their kayaks before heading home. As Jake finally lands, he meets up with his son Sean, who got caught for spilling oil on the deck. As it turns out, Sean is taking out his frustrations over the family's moving to Alaska following his mother's death, despite Jake's insistence that they need to move on. Jake is then assigned to make an emergency run at Douglas, but his plane's engines stall, causing him to lose control and crash somewhere close to Devils Thumb. Frustrated by the lack of search effort by the police, Sean and Jessie go out to find their father on their own.
As they kayak through the chilly waters of the Gulf of Alaska, they pull up to shore where they found a camp belonging to Perry and Koontz. Discovering the cub locked inside a cage and his mother's skin, the kids set the cub free before they all escape. Upon returning to the camp, Perry and Koontz learn that the cub has escaped, and Perry decides to recapture him despite Koontz's objections. Eventually, Perry meets up with the kids at a campsite and confronts them for setting the bear free before leaving.
The next day, Jessie and Sean continue in their search to find their missing father. Leaving the kayak, they begin searching on foot while the polar bear cub follows them. Perry and Koontz are also on the kids' trail, deducing that the cub is following them. Just as Charlie is arriving on his helicopter to find the kids, Perry and Koontz hide away the kids' kayak while giving Charlie a piece of the oar in hopes of sending him on a wild goose chase.
After going through a mountain drop, the kids take refuge inside a old rusty cabin before taking a canoe to continue their search down a river. However, they lose their canoe in a waterfall, though they end up being rescued by Chip and his grandfather Ben, who are out on a caribou hunt. Chip's father wants to send Jessie and Sean home, but Ben and Chip wish to help the two on their journey. Sean and Jessie then proceed on their quest with the polar bear cub, whom Sean nicknamed Cubby, by their side. In the meantime, Charlie finds the poachers' camp and reports it to the police before heading back to Devils Thumb, realizing that Perry and Koontz lied to him.
Eventually, Cubby is able to lead the kids close to Devils Thumb, but Perry and Koontz ambush the kids with their helicopter before tranquilizing Cubby with a dart. Loading the cub into the helicopter, Perry and Koontz fly away, but as Koontz didn't load the dart with enough tranquilizer fluids, Cubby wakes up and gets into a scuffle with Perry. As Koontz is forced to lower the helicopter, Cubby bites Perry's right knee, causing Perry to accidentally shoot Koontz with a tranquilizer dart and disable the helicopter's controls. As Cubby escapes away back to Devils Thumb, Sean and Jessie continue on in their search for their missing father. They stumble upon some wreckage from his plane crash and finally locate him after he fires a flare into the air.
Jessie lowers Sean down the side of the mountain to reach Jake. Just as it looks like Jessie is going to lose control of the rope, Cubby comes to the rescue by helping Jessie pull the rope to reel both Jake and Sean back to safety. As the Barnes family is reunited, Charlie shows up to complete the rescue after Sean fires another flare to alert him of their location. In the meantime, Perry and Koontz are forced to trek on foot after their helicopter is disabled, upset that they have lost Cubby and that they will possibly be tracked down by the authorities. Charlie and the Barnes family then return Cubby back to the wilderness, where he meets up with a new polar bear family after bidding goodbye to the kids.

## Cast

* Thora Birch as Jessie Barnes
* Vincent Kartheiser as Sean Barnes
* Dirk Benedict as Jake Barnes
* Charlton Heston as Colin Perry
* Duncan Fraser as Mr. Koontz
* Gordon Tootoosis as Ben
* Ben Cardinal as Charlie
* Ryan Kent as Chip
* Don S. Davis as Sergeant Sam Grazer
* Dolly Madsen as Mrs. Ben
* Stephen E. Miller as Trooper Sam Harvey
* Byron Chief-Moon as Chip's Father
* Kristin Lehman as Florence
* Adrien Dorval as Burly Fisherman
* Agee as Cubby

## Reception
### Box office

The film managed to bring in US domestic revenues of only $11,829,959 against a production budget of $24 million.

### Critical response

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 17% based on reviews from 13 critics, with an average of 4.70 out of 10.
Emanuel Levy of Variety wrote: "Beautiful vistas, Thora Birch and a cute bear can't compensate for the routine story and sloppy direction of this old-fashioned family adventure." Jeff Vice of the Deseret News wrote: "Really bad performances, an awful script straight out of a TV movie of the week and one of the least appealing, most irritating young heroes in recent screen history."