The official, and indeed most accurate title of this film is "Avalanche", but approximately two dozen of other movies have the same title. It's also available as "Escape from Alaska", but that's a rather incorrect title because people are not trying to escape out of the state, just out of a little Alaskan town named Juneau. My point? Everything starts with a good, strong and accurate title.
I honestly don't want to sound too harsh. I really love disaster movies, the bigger the better, and "Escape from Alaska" is a fairly amiable - albeit lacking - attempt. Throughout of the 90s, there were several large-budgeted productions revolving around natural disasters, including pandemics ("Outbreak"), volcanic eruptions ("Dante's Peak", "Volcano"), meteorites ("Deep Impact", "Armageddon") and heavy storms ("Twister"), but yours truly always preferred the true magic of the 70s. I detected a bit of that seventies' spirit in "Escape from Alaska", but unfortunately not enough.
For starters, nobody was ever able to raise humongous budgets like producer Irwin Allen could. I wasn't expecting blockbuster standards, but the special effects in "Escape from Alaska" were truly poor. The miniature sets, the washing power (or whatever it was they used as snow) and the unfitting stock footage of avalanches makes the film look really pathetic. The cast isn't exactly impressive, neither. Fallen-stardom actor Thomas Howell and R. Lee Ermey are the only noteworthy names.
What the film does quite well, however, is splitting the characters into two camps with completely opposite ideals and/or initiatives. The environmental activist and her guilt-ridden helicopter pilot boyfriend form one camp, against reckless oil-industry tycoons (you can practically see the $-signs in their eyes) and middle-class Alaskan workers for whom no refinery means no income. This results in the heroic duo having to embark on clandestine pipeline inspections, rude press-conference and board-meeting interruptions and (pitiable) barfights.
Last but worst, the disasters in "Escape from Alaska" aren't disastrous enough, and there are far, far too many sentimental moments. Another unwritten rule of disaster movies is that the misery and the bad breaks keep on coming non-stop, and that when situations appears to be at their worst, it can and will still get even worse! In this film, this is only partially true. There are plane crashes, malfunctioning helicopters, and supposedly even polar bear attacks, but none of it is thrilling enough.
