The vistas are spectacular and some of the suspense is effective, but the story is egregiously dumb, and the polar bear becomes so improbably resourceful that one fully expects it to fly everyone home and then script the sequel.

Beautiful vistas, Thora Birch and a cute bear can't compensate for the routine story and sloppy direction of this old-fashioned family adventure about the courageous efforts of two children to find their missing father.

Alaska is one of those "Don't ask. Don't tell'' movies that persuades us to go along with the innocence and simplicity of it all.

Charlton Heston, though he has saved the Jews and a whole bunch of other distressed folk in the past, along with painting the Sistine Chapel, can't rescue his son's picture.