Eight Below, 5 stars!

James: (age 6) ***** I liked it when the leopard seal was chasing Max. Remember when there was the reflection of that beautiful stuff in the sky (northern lights) and they were chasing it on the ground?

Jupiter: (age 5)***** Eight below was 7 stars. I liked the dogs. I liked it when the owner got the dogs back.

Justice (age 3) *****I gave it 7. I think I liked the guy who got bitten. Mama you know what I liked about it? I liked it when the orca bit the dog. A orca came up and James spilled his candy.

Mama: *****This was a five star family movie. I loved the icescapes, and seeing how a dog team works. The human stories and the dog stories were both engaging, and though they could have edited out 15 minutes or so (it was a full two hours) I felt the pacing was good. There was lots of genuine tension as so many of the situations were life and death. I don't tend to be too interested in man-against-nature things, but dog-against-nature, now that's gripping stuff. The leopard seal scene--wow, we all jumped at that one. James even dropped his gummy bears all over himself. Justice let me cover her eyes. Usually they fight that kind of thing. Of course I had some complaints about how the female character was scripted. At least she wasn't a generic girlfriend back at the base, waiting on her man to grow up--she was a cool, sexy pilot and not waiting around for anyone. But still, I just wanted more in the dialogue of what was hinted at--that she was attracted to Jerry, but until he matured, it was just a flirtation. I guess I wanted her to be a truth-teller a little bit, not just supportive. These are petty complaints though. It was an awesome action movie with great relationships, breathtaking scenery, a good story and even a cool tough, Native American actress, thank you very much! All in all a five star family movie.

Adam: *****Very tight script. No wasted details--everything returns to matter, from the fissures in the ice, to the mention of the leopard seal to the photograph of the Italian girlfriend. For an animal movie the human central character was done pretty well. It could have been really one dimensional: a guy really loves dogs. But everyone in the movie was right--human life is more important than dog life, and they were right to leave the dogs behind, and our character's problem was that he was angry at everyone for allowing that to happen, but he needed to come to see that his exceptional love for dogs was unique and that other people didn't share it. He had to come to terms with that on his own. Once he did, he decided on his own to go rescue the dogs because he would be ill at ease until he knew their fates and had done honor to their service to him. Then everyone joins him on his quest for the right reason, which is they go for him, their friend, not the dogs. It could have lost fifteen minutes of fat in the soul-searching middle. And even though I knew something really scary was about to happen I still had a gummy-bear dropping jolt.