http://imdb.com/title/tt0397313/

My rating: 5/10

This is a Disney movie, so I expected quality family entertainment! And I got it – at least the “family” part…

Unfortunately (for me), I also expected thrilling action: the title suggests an icy adventure and since John Carpenter’s “The Thing”, I can’t resist a flick set on snow & ice. Indeed, there is a low temperature trouble, but it gets solved so early and so fast, that it cuts a lot of the potential emotions that could have been exploited.

After the “problem solved / everyone is rescued” event, the viewer rests with a dogs’ movie – very literally. The worst thing is the anthropomorphization of the snow dogs: at some point they even organize reunions, to decide hunting strategies and to teach one “deviant” element, some lessons.

Of course that Disney is all about anthropomorphization - Mickey, Donald, you name it -, but I expected the anthropomorphism to be limited to animation movies – not to flesh & bone films.

So, I was disappointed with (1) the light handling of the snow storm accident and its consequences; (2) the excessive anthropomorphization of the snow dogs; and (3) too much barking.

Eight Below (Widescreen Edition) (via amazon.com [for the Americas])

Not available via amazon.co.uk

Eight Below (Widescreen Edition)