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| Director: Sean Penn
Actors: Emile Hirsch, Vince Vaughn, Catherine Keener, Marcia Gay Harden, William Hurt
Studio: Paramount
Category: DVD
List Price: $29.98
Buy Used: $4.50
You Save: $25.48 (85%)
New (56) Used (45) Collectible (1) from $4.50
Avg. Customer Rating:  232 reviews
Sales Rank: 643
Format: Ac-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, Dvd-video, Subtitled, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Dubbed), Spanish (Dubbed)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 148
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: PARD348124D
UPC: 097363481249
EAN: 0097363481249
ASIN: B000ZN802W
Theatrical Release Date: 2007
Release Date: March 4, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
Excellent September 21, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
If you watch the first 5 or so minutes, you might expect this movie to be lame, but it most certainly is not. Inspired by an amazing true story, it's a very powerful film about a guy you really want to learn about. Fine writing, fine acting, and amazing scenery. I'm impressed.
 Wow ...... ! September 16, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
If this movie didn't bring out the cuckoo-birds out of their looney-bins to expound on their goofy conclusions about McCandless and this story!!! I rate it 5 stars for all those reasons others rated this film a five - with their nicely expressed and accurately thoughtout reviews. Just read some of those 1, 2, and 3 star ratings! I think if these goofies were asked to add 2 + 2 ... their answer would be 22!!!
 into the wild... 3.5 stars... September 15, 2008
christopher mc candless was a young man who tried to fit himself into the social system but always felt for something out there that called for him; something outside society and its bounds, deadlines, stress and the quest for buying more plastic made commodities and shiny gadgets.
immersed in his world of music and books where he would find solace, he was a highly sensitive boy with a high intelligence.
reading a lot of litterature without keeping your feet in the real world, creates a universe of idealism in which, the frustrated mind finds refuge. it's like a drug. the more you hide in that ideal world, the more frustrated and bitter you become when faced with the actual world we all live in: seeing his parents consent to live together despite their enormous differences, chris saw them as hypocrites, especially his mom, who, despite being betrayed by her husband, chooses to stay because of the comfort and security she got used to. after all, the husband is a NASA genius and we dont leave such a man because he slept with another woman.
unmaterialistic to the farthest extent, chris was still planning to enter college but his parents deciding to reward him with a brand new car, was the last straw for the kid: he finds out that after all that time, his parents still didnt understand his personality and that he was never attracted by aquiring 'things' and that rewarding him with 'things' showed him how much his bickering parents cling to appearences.
what happens next is chris, submerged in a tide of idealism leavs all behind, on a trek bound for alaska, as far as possible from social bonds, hypocrisy and materialism.
he works in odd jobs, uses money as much as needed for his sustenance, and on his way, leaves a positive mark on the people he meets; a spirit who wills not to be ensnared by the ephemereal and tricky temptations of the modern world.
while discovering the savage beauty of the nature around him, our hero will ultimately discover that happiness only has meaning when it's shared.. and since the whole world has become neck deep into dependance on modernity, his odds to meet a likeminded soul were equal to finding a winning lottery ticket on the ground. this meant he had to reintegrate society. his stubbornness to stay alone will lead him to his own demise: with little experience in the ways of survival, chris will be found dead by poisoning from inedible berries he ate by mistake.
some people will be glad this kid who caused his family much suffering, met his just end, but the story is not about that;
it's true that the character is too idealistic and ridden with flaws. he didnt seem to make efforts to help his parents have a better relationship, for example. he was too arrogant in the way that whenever he saw a glimpse of conformity and hypocrisy, he steered away without trying to do anything about it despite his obviously high intellignece and insight. he helped a foreign hippie couple overcome its differences while he could have done the same for his parents, but didnt.
for all the flaws in chris' character, i dont see him as an example to follow, hence the rating of 3 over 5.
the movie's strong point is reminding us that while we spend our life compromising, stressing out and tense about mortgages, due dates, deadlines and conformity, there's a beautiful world around us that we're failing to see. there's a peace we're missing, and a sense of eternity that's lost to us in our world ruled by intertwined timelines and purchase coupons.
finally, eddie vedder and friends do a wonderful job with the soundtrack. the movie sports some truly amazing music.
overall, this movie gently wakes us up to look around us and to notice the spirit , without alienating its audience with dumbed down philosophy and haughty lecturing. this is just a frustrated youth with some valid points that are worth exploring.
WOW! September 15, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
This movie is so intense and so moving at the same time. Emile is Chris all the way! Every person should watch this movie, it teaches a lot. It is very sad that Chris learned the hard way. Great book, awesome movie!!
 Awful September 12, 2008
4 out of 14 found this review helpful
How did the bus get there? Of all the questions (pseudo and real) that Sean Penn's latest film, Into The Wild, is so manifestly trying to provoke- and in a semi-retarded hippy-cum-tree hugger sort of way, this most basic and elemental plot point is never addressed. But, more on that later.
The film is based upon the 1996 nonfiction bestseller by Jon Krakauer, about a spoiled rich white suburban boy who basically commits suicide in the Alaskan wilderness, although he is so painfully unaware of the real world that he does not even know his own dark- almost Objectivist, impulses, and where they will lead. The book the film is based upon was a good read, even if one might question the wisdom of making a martyr out of such a delusional narcissist as Christopher Johnson McCandless (Emile Hirsch)- the 24 year old who starved to death on the aforementioned bus, after accidentally poisoning himself with inedible berries, in the middle of Alaska's wilds, after adopting the pseudonym Alexander Supertramp.
The lead character is simply annoyingly repellant- perhaps only Roberto Benigni's lead character, Guido, in the awful Life Is Beautiful, makes a viewer more actively root for the character's death. In that film the lead character is so annoying that one actually roots for the Nazis to kill him, and in this film McCandless is so pompous and the film so long (140 minutes, compared to a book barely over 200 pages) that, at the hour mark, one wishes he'd just die already, so one can vacate the theater. But, no relief will come for over an hour. But, as repellant as Chris McCandless, the character, is, the direction by Sean Penn- in his first truly big budget feature, is ATROCIOUS! Yes, Penn is a great actor, but his direction, and even worse screenplay, make this film a chore. Only some stellar acting, mostly by supporting actors, saves this film from total disaster.... That so many people identify and sympathize with this unfortunately deluded and hollow young loser bespeaks how little they even notice themselves, and their own flaws, much less the many other McCandlesses that proliferate in cafes across the nation. Life is as real, both for the good and ill, in a New York City deli, a doctor's waiting room, or in a tenement, as it is on the peak of Mount Everest, riding the tube of a forty foot wave in Hawaii, or trekking through the Amazon. McCandless never learned this for no one seemed to care enough to even try to stop him. Of course, even had they, he was so selfish and uncaring of others' feelings, that he likely would not have been deterred. And, Penn would likely not have cared to make a film about such a character, anyway.
So, given the predetermined mess of this film, I return to the opening query- how did the bus, which the film refers to as `magic'- thank you to The Who, get there? A Google search reveals the bus was fortuitously left by a highway construction company, decades earlier, to be used as a waystation for hikers, hunters, and campers. Since everything else in this film is so obvious, I just thought you'd want to know that and, also, to avoid this film. Thank me later.
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