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Rating:  - boring
This movie is soooo slowww, with nothing really going on. I found it boring and turned it off after 30 minutes.
Rating:  - An existential odyssey
Into the Wild will not be to everyone's liking. Some people will dislike the protagonist, Christopher McCandless, and others will find the movie's pacing to be slow. Yet, I was fascinated by and even a little envious of Chris's dogged attempt to find meaning in life and his disregard for other people's expectations. Like the ascetic monks who would wander into the desert to find enlightenment, Chris was determined to find the answers to spiritual questions by renouncing all worldly things and, ultimately, all contact with other people.
Jaded by the shallowness of America's consumer culture and the poisonous dynamics of family life as he grew up, and inspired by writers like Tolstoy, Thoreau, and London who praised simplicity and being connected to nature, Chris decides after graduating from Emory University to give away his money, break off all contact with his wealthy family, and take off on the mother of all road trips. He does not get far before his car is damaged in flash flooding, so he abandons the automobile and makes the remainder of his journey by walking, canoeing, hitchhiking, or sneaking onto freight trains. Chris travels to various places in America and Mexico and plunges into new experiences, new friendships, and a new romance. Drawing him onward is the lure of his "great Alaska adventure" in which he would live alone in Alaska's big sky country. Along his circuitous route to Alaska, he breaks the hearts of many people he leaves behind, including a lonely old man, Ron Franz (played by Hal Holbrook, in a touching performance), who offers to adopt him. Although Chris shows his fondness for Ron, Chris keeps him at a safe emotional distance by saying that happiness cannot be found in human relationships.
[SPOILER ALERT] After Chris at last makes his way into the Alaskan backcountry in April, he makes a series of mistakes (not properly preserving his wild game and eating poisonous berries) that bring him to the brink of death. At last experiencing the most profound type of solitude--that of an isolated person confronting his imminent end--Chris concludes that a happy life is one shared with others, not one spent alone. The viewer is left to ponder the question of whether, if Chris had recovered, he truly would have reintegrated into society or whether the "call of the wild" would have led him back onto his solitary path. In other words, even if Chris did not want to die alone, it's unclear whether he would have wanted to live alone.
Raising perennial questions about whether society improves or spoils its members, whether happiness is found in social settings or in confronting nature alone, whether a person should live by uncompromising ideals or should make his peace with society's numerous and serious flaws, whether someone who so completely rejects society's shared ideals is a genius or a madman, and whether Chris was running away from his problems or engaging in a necessarily private spiritual quest, Into the Wild gives the thoughtful viewer much to think about. Yet, the movie also engages the viewers' emotions by showing Chris's desperate yearning for a pure and intensely lived life and the fragile and combustible dynamics of human relationships. For viewers who are more interested in a mature and contemplative film, Into the Wild is highly recommended.
Rating:  - The Wrong Director for the Job
You have to think of this as a film loosely inspired by Jon Krakauer's book about a young man's search for truth and freedom on an adventure that led him into the wild. Even that book, as carefully researched and well-written as it is, is wildly speculative and, in the end, is more of a meditation on that search and on what drives some of us to make it, than it is a biography of the one who called himself Alexander Supertramp. Sean's Penn plays fast and loose with the historical record, inventing and/or re-inventing characters and relationships and rewriting or outright deleting parts of Christopher McCandless's adventure that don't fit Penn's script even to the point of refashioning the terms of his demise. I was disappointed and yet deeply affected by the film when I first saw it. I then read Krakauer's book and that deepened my disappointment and left me wondering how (and why) Penn had gotten it so wrong. Watching it a second time, now, I am left simply with this sense of a lost opportunity. There's an interesting and important story to be told here, but Sean Penn is not the director to tell it.
Rating: - What's the point
What a self indulgent little twrip. I found nothing at all endearing about this character. What a waste of 2.5 hrs.
RWF
Rating: - WOW!
I had heard about this real story watching a TV talk show that the author appeared on and it intrigued me. While it starts a bit slow the depth of it soon comes through and you are right there with CHristopher Johnson McCandless. A sad tale about a young man who has the right idea but doesn't prepare himself enough. Especially for one so bright and full of life.
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