Movie Review - Into The Wild

Narrated by his sister, a young man from a well-to-do family has been accepted into Harvard. He doesn't really care about being part of society so he decides to go out on his own and make it in the wild. He cuts up his credit cards, driver's license, social security card and all of his id's and burns all of his money and reinvents himself as Alexander Supertramp. His intention is to make it all the way to Alaska. Inspired by books he's read and armed with a "Plants You Can Eat" guide, he is gone from home for two years traveling the wilderness and making it on his own by fishing and hunting, all the while keeping a journal of every day's adventures.

This was an excellent movie and if it weren't for the effs throughout, it would be a good family film. Well, actually, there are some nude scenes...and there's quite a bit of gorey stuff shown as it details killing, skinning and cooking animals. So maybe it's not a great family movie, but definitely a good movie to show how to survive without much other than the clothes on your back. He does get a few jobs here and there and with the money he buys supplies such as a kayak to paddle down the river and a shotgun to hunt with, but otherwise money is meaningless to him.

Based on a true story. (There is a self portrait of the real guy that is shown at the end of the movie.) Excellent re-creation of events. I'm curious to know if at the end of the movie it stated "no animals were harmed during the filming of this movie) because there are a few scenes that are questionable. (I couldn't stay in the theater that long, though, because the next movie on my list was getting ready to start.)

There are several really powerful sayings that are made in this movie. Two of them I remember are: "happiness only real when shared" and "When you give, you love and when you love, God's light shines on you."

I can't wait til this one comes out on dvd to find out how they did the moose scene and the bear scene. Both left me holding my breath....not realizing that I was until after each scene was over.

Excellent, excellent movie, but you have to be in the right mood for it to fully enjoy it, I think. It is a very slow, very long (2 hours and 27 minutes) very all over the place (the date of events kept changing from present to 5 weeks ago and back and it was a bit difficult to keep track of what was happening when) adventure drama with a few love stories between him and some of the people he encounters. I think I could watch this one over and over again.