This just isn't a good movie.
You're hardly given a chance to distinguish the characters, which would be a necessary part of being able to identify with them and feel for and with them. The fact that all the names are changed doesn't help.
Instead there are gory pictures and mumbled dialogue. The scenes are often so short it's impossible to feel any kind of suspense. You get the feeling of snapshots of a story.
I can excuse bad effects, I can adjust my expectations to budget and era. But in this case they just heighten the lack of storytelling. What substance that film could have had is sacrificed for shock effects. The styrofoam snow just doesn't help.
There are a few good things. The recreation of the fuselage is surprisingly accurate for example.
The worst parts? The music and the narrator.
The music would suit an adventure or horror film, but not a story like this. The narration is a nightmare. The tone is condescending, even cruel, sometimes even giving blame to survivors. For example yes, there was a hotel nearby that was closed up for winter, but the survivors couldn't have known that. With the (wrong) information they had going west seemed to be the only sensible decision.
If you want to watch a good retelling of what happened in that winter in the andes, go for the 1993 film. While it too makes some minor changes to the events, it draws you in and makes you feel with the survivors. It depicts their friendship, the tragedy and the hope of this extraordinary story of survival. This movie doesn't.
You're hardly given a chance to distinguish the characters, which would be a necessary part of being able to identify with them and feel for and with them. The fact that all the names are changed doesn't help.
Instead there are gory pictures and mumbled dialogue. The scenes are often so short it's impossible to feel any kind of suspense. You get the feeling of snapshots of a story.
I can excuse bad effects, I can adjust my expectations to budget and era. But in this case they just heighten the lack of storytelling. What substance that film could have had is sacrificed for shock effects. The styrofoam snow just doesn't help.
There are a few good things. The recreation of the fuselage is surprisingly accurate for example.
The worst parts? The music and the narrator.
The music would suit an adventure or horror film, but not a story like this. The narration is a nightmare. The tone is condescending, even cruel, sometimes even giving blame to survivors. For example yes, there was a hotel nearby that was closed up for winter, but the survivors couldn't have known that. With the (wrong) information they had going west seemed to be the only sensible decision.
If you want to watch a good retelling of what happened in that winter in the andes, go for the 1993 film. While it too makes some minor changes to the events, it draws you in and makes you feel with the survivors. It depicts their friendship, the tragedy and the hope of this extraordinary story of survival. This movie doesn't.