Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Eight Below (2006)

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 02-18-2006, 01:35 PM:

I really liked this one a lot. Although the story is fairly predictable, it is a truly touching one. It's one of those movies where you know how it's going to end, but you aren't quite sure how they're going to get there. Paul Walker does a good job and the dogs are simply amazing. And the scenery is awesome.

A solid 4 out of 5 for me.

(For search engine bait: 8 Below (which is how it's written in the TV ads.)

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 02-18-2006, 05:36 PM:

I won't be quite so kind, but I'm not going to slaughter this one either.

SPOILERS AHEAD THAT SHOULDN'T SURPRISE ANYONE WITH HALF A BRAIN KNOWING HOW THIS MOVIE WILL END...

Most of the acting and directing is pretty good, but I just can't get over some of the old-school Disney'esque animal movies of the past, where the dogs communicate and basically act like humans. Obviously there had to be some amount of teamwork for the group of dogs to survive, but they should've toned it down a little bit.

This movie will do very good family business though.

2.5 out of 5

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 02-18-2006, 09:16 PM:

In the REAL LIFE story that this film is based on only 2 of the 9 dogs actually survived....

Mark

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 02-18-2006, 09:17 PM:

I will admit to rolling my eyes at the part where one dog went, "Arf! Arf!" and the other dogs knew to split up into two groups and have one group chase a flock of birds into the other group. It was still cool-looking though.

Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 02-18-2006, 10:14 PM:

I agree with Brad...

I give it a 2 out of 9... [Cool]

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 02-19-2006, 04:09 PM:

Today 11:40AM, Regal Cinema World 8 in Eugene, House #4, SR•D. Attendance maybe 20-25. This is the first time I've seen a damaged "new" print around here in quite a while: There were light horizontal scratches on the left side of the image, from start to finish. Platter scratches? The scratches were short at first and got longer as the film progressed until they affected hearly half the frame. Also a lot of dirt around a couple of the reel change splices.

What can I say -- I liked it. Kids will love it. Beautifully photographed, well-acted. The dogs are awesome. Is the leopard seal for real? Damn that thing is ugly. I about jumped out of my seat in that one scene (which reminded me of a similar scene in "Jaws").

I give it 3 stars out of 5.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 02-19-2006, 05:02 PM:

Sounds like that print ran at a theater with retards running soundtrack down. Normally the scratches would've gotten less obtrusive as the show progressed, so perhaps that print was a screener print that was damaged before those guys got it from a loading/breakdown (and your theater foolishly didn't reject the print).

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 02-19-2006, 05:48 PM:

Good point, it's very possible this theater didn't do the damage. In fact I don't think I've ever seen this kind of scratch damage there before.

I was sitting fairly close to the screen, which made the scratches more noticeable. During the end credits, while the lights were still down, I could barely notice the scratches when standing at the back of the theater.