Bear Hugging?

Most outdoor adventure flicks follow an old and tired formula that is so predictable, it's hard to stay awake to the bittersweet end. The feral theme of man overcoming the elements is the stuff of legends since the dawn of man. Yet when a director is able to put a new spin on the storyline with a high-impact subplot, we've got the kind of flick you can watch over and over again for the rush effect. Not since Deliverance have we seen one of the caliber of The Edge.

Anthony Hopkins stars as Charles Morse, a world-weary millionaire publisher whose trophy wife Micki (Elle Macpherson) is having an affair with her modeling photographer Robert (Alec Baldwin). Charles tags along on a photo shoot in the Alaskan wilderness, during which Micki and her yuppie crew give him a surprise birthday party at a remote mountain lodge. Robert's fixation on the photo of a local Indian woodsman results in Robert, his aide Stephen (Harold Perrineau Jr.) and Charles taking a flight in a small aircraft to the hunter's cabin. En route, the craft runs into a flock of birds and crashes into the woods, killing the pilot and leaving the three survivors to find their way across the icy wastelands back to the lodge.

As always, Sir Anthony comes to the rescue, providing the necessary depth amidst a cast of two-dimensional characters. Charles' power of perception helps him rationalize and overcome the obstacles in his life, from running a billion-dollar corporation to neutralizing his wife's jealous lover, to outwitting an unusually devious killer grizzly bear hot on the survivors' trail. Unlike Deliverance, the bear's intent is not to abuse his victims' booty hole; rather, to tear them a new one. Charles' mission is to help the yuppies survive the wilderness while keeping Robert from killing him. What makes the conflict so interesting is that Charles is perceived by his companions as a super-yuppie, insulated from real life in his ivory tower. As the plot develops, we find that his intellect allows him to think outside the yuppie box, something the others find impossible to do.

The grizzly (played by Bart the Bear) is the special ingredient that makes this thing rock. His sudden appearance during the yuppies' argument over the northerly direction is guaranteed to make your pulse race. The chase is on, and immediately we are placed in a Jaws-like atmosphere as the yuppies are forced to flight against a feral creature who can appear and inflict death and dismemberment at any moment. Grizzlies have been compared to sharks by a majority of zoologists; they exist only to forage, and there is little calculation or consideration involved when they are on the hunt. This is a half-ton killing machine, and without weapons, the yuppies have nothing to rely on but Charles' intelligence.

Baldwin's Robert is able to sweeten the pot (and plot) in attempting to carry out his plan to kill Charles and live happily ever after with the merry widow. Charles perceives Robert's intentions early in the game, but it is beyond his sense of altruism to leave Robert for the bear and seek his own means of escape. Charles evokes all the more empathy from the audience in his benevolence, while we keep praying for a change of heart from Robert, whose yuppie veneer continues to crack under the enormous pressure brought to bear (ouch). It is the chemistry between Hopkins and Baldwin that makes this special; the bonding between assassin and victim under such harrowing conditions seems too good to go for naught.

For Hopkins and Baldwin fans, outdoor adventure types and animal themed film lovers, you can't go wrong. The Edge is right where you'll want to be.