RottenTomatoes.com freshness score: 33%
3 reviews counted: 1 positive; 2 negative
[In the table below, the column labeled "RT.c" shows a plus or minus sign, indicating whether the RottenTomatoes.com website rated the review mainly positive (+) or negative (-). Reviews with nothing in the "RT.c" column (that is, they have no plus or minus by them), were not catalogued by the RottenTomatoes.com website, and are not included in the RottenTomatoes.com score.]
| Source | Review Author | RT.c | Grade | Grade as # |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seattle Post-Intelligencer | William Arnold | A- | 92 | |
| Milwaukee Journal Sentinel | Jackie Loohauis | 3 1/2 stars (out of 4) | 88 | |
| Deseret News | Diane Urbani | 3 1/2 stars (out of 4) | 88 | |
| TV Guide's Movie Guide | Steve Simels | + | 4 stars (out of 5) | 78 |
| Christian Science Monitor | Gregory M. Lamb | 3 stars (out of 4) | 75 | |
| Seattle Times | Moira Macdonald | 3 stars (out of 4) | 75 | |
| Detroit Free Press | John Monaghan | 3 stars (out of 4) | 75 | |
| Hollywood Report Card | Ross Anthony | - | 2.5/4 | 63 |
| Boxoffice Magazine | Annlee Ellingson | 2 1/2 stars (out of 5) | 45 | |
| New York Post | V.A. Musetto | - | 1 star (out of 4) | 25 |
| Source | Reviewer |
|---|---|
| New York Times | Lawrence van Gelder |
| Village Voice | Nick Rutigliano |
| Hollywood Reporter | David Hunter |
| Associated Press / The Olympian | Ron Cowan |
| Film Journal International | Daniel Eagan |
| Boston Globe | Wesley Morris |
| Idaho Statesman-Journal | John Livzey |
| Shepherd Express (Milwaukee) | John Jahn |
| onMilwaukee.com | Sarah Van Harpen |
| San Diego Entertainment Network | Phillip Brents |
**** [4 out of 5 stars]
Director Bruce Neibaur's dramatic recreation of the epochal Lewis and Clark expedition -- an undertaking that was in its day (1803-1806) equivalent in difficulty and danger to a trip to the moon -- represents a truly spectacular use of the IMAX format. All history lessons should be as enthralling. Filmed mostly on the actual locations, the film chronicles the expedition's 8000-mile journey from the mouth of the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean and back, across a wilderness that only Native Americans had ever seen. Along the way, they identified and catalogued hundreds of plant and animal species and basically changed the course of America's history. Screenwriter Mose Richards's script is an artful mix of historical narration (nicely voiced by Jeff Bridges) and quotes from the copious journals kept by expedition members. It's remarkable how much detail is crammed into the film's 45-minute running time, and though it dances around some troublesome historical issues -- Clark, for example, was accompanied by a slave who wasn't freed until ten years after the expedition -- at least they're brought up, if only in passing. As you might expect, the film is visually stunning; about half of the footage is aerial, and depicts jaw-droppingly beautiful vistas of virgin forests, rivers and plains. And there are some amazing set pieces, including a stunning sequence of an apparently endless heard of stampeding buffalo whose hooves sound like an earthquake, and an attack by what may be the most terrifying grizzly bear in screen history. Another plus is the highly evocative orchestral score by Sam Cardon, which juggles Celtic and Native American elements with aplomb. All in all, a really tremendous piece of filmmaking and a stunning visual and aural treat; the only puzzle is why, with the exception of the native Americans, all the actors somehow look Liam Neeson.
**1/2 [2 1/2 stars out of 5]
Narrated by Jeff Bridges. Directed by Bruce Neibaur. Written by Mose Richards. Produced by Lisa Truitt and Jeff T. Miller. A Destination Cinema release. Large-format docudrama. Not yet rated. Running time: 42 min.
In anticipation of the bicentennial of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark's historic expedition, this docudrama traces their three-year journey to find a water route to the Pacific Ocean--the fabled Northwest Passage. Appointed by President Thomas Jefferson to explore the newly bought Louisiana Purchase and detail the flora and fauna they found within it, the adventurers faced numerous dangers and survived only with the help of the Native Americans they met along the way.
Given the film's abbreviated running time and target demographic, the events depicted in "Lewis and Clark" are abridged and sanitized. A character named York is described as Clark's slave "and friend." Sacagawea's participation in the excursion and her marriage to a French trapper (she was 16 and pregnant when she met Lewis and Clark) are colored as voluntary and enthusiastic. The two men are described as great friends despite their great differences, but it's unclear exactly what their differences are. And while the film does mention Lewis' apparent suicide, it does little to foreshadow his depression leading up to it.
In addition, while the scenery is gorgeously photographed and a thundering buffalo herd fully utilizes the powerful sound of a large-format theatre, the storytelling is not particularly compelling: As Jeff Bridges narrates, the men and women portraying the historic character merely act out what he's saying, doing little to engage viewers in the story.
*** [3 stars out of 4]
Narrated sturdily by the all-American voice of Jeff Bridges, and shot in full IMAX glory, "Lewis & Clark: Great Journey West" is a handsome re-telling of a familiar story -- an expedition as legendary in its time, we're told, as the first trip to the moon.
While the story suffers a bit for being condensed to a kid-friendly 42 minutes, history lessons don't come much more pleasant than this. (And there's even an adorable mile-high shot of a chirping prairie dog, guaranteed to make audiences of all ages coo "ooh.")
Two hundred years ago, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark led 31 explorers on an unprecedented 8,000-mile journey to follow the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean. At the time, "Lewis & Clark" tells us, the uncharted West was widely believed to still be mired in prehistoric times, with woolly mammoths roaming. Instead, the expedition found numerous Native American tribes -- some friendly, some less so.
The filmmakers skate around the expedition's treatment of the tribes, but schoolkids who attend this movie will likely have classroom conversations later about whether medals and promises were appropriate recompense. "Lewis and Clark" is careful to note the praiseworthy contributions of Sacagawea, the Shoshone Indian who served as a guide for much of the journey, as well as those of Clark's slave, York.
Director Bruce Neibaur's team of actors look great in their carefully detailed costumes and gamely attack the shoot's physical challenges. But as in the equally fine IMAX film "Shackleton's Antarctic Adventure," the filmmakers are aware of the perils of historic re-enactment (which can have a stagey quality), and consequently the actor's dialogue is kept to a minimum. Bridges' voice-over, accompanied by Sam Cardon's lovely score, gives detail and background to what we see.
As with all IMAX movies, though, the focus is on the postcard-perfect vistas captured on that giant screen -- and much of "Lewis & Clark" is simply breathtaking. Seeing an explorer (Clark? Or was it Lewis?) tumble down a rocky cliff -- with the camera seemingly sliding right behind him at breakneck speed -- is as scary as any roller-coaster ride. And among the spectacular scenery, one simple shot stands out: a vividly green tree, each leaf glowing in the sun as if generating its own light.
The first of many events commemorating the upcoming 200th anniversary of the Lewis & Clark expedition of 1804-06, this National Geographic-produced Imax film will be traveling leisurely around the country. Since April 20, distributor Destination Cinema's "Lewis & Clark: Great Journey West" has opened in big-format venues in Nebraska, Texas, Missouri, Utah and Michigan, with the rest of the big country beckoning. Next up May 18 is Jersey City, N.J.'s, Dome Theater at the Liberty Science Center.
A reteaming of director Bruce Neibaur and producer Lisa Truitt, who collaborated on National Geographic's Imax hit "Mysteries of Egypt," "Lewis & Clark" is a fine introduction to the subject matter by way of a documentary-like re-creation that condenses the epic 8,000-mile journey into 42 minutes while filming in locations as close as possible to the ones described in historical journals.
One of our prouder moments as an emerging nation, the Thomas Jefferson-inspired exploration by river of America's vast Northwestern interior is of historical significance for not always good reasons. Uncharted by non-natives but hardly unoccupied, the land is teeming with new species and new people. Indeed, a young woman named Sacagawea (Alex Rice) becomes a crucial member of the expedition, while the Native American world they travel through will soon suffer a calamitous decline.
Led by Jefferson's private secretary Meriwether Lewis (Kelly Boulware) and soldier-explorer William Clark (Sonny Surowiec), the ambitious expedition to map the Missouri River, cross the Continental Divide and find passage to the Pacific Ocean (on the Columbia River) left St. Louis on May 14, 1804, and returned Sept. 23, 1806. With little conventional dialogue, but with the performers convincingly re-enacting selected portions of the journey, "Lewis & Clark" is ultimately all about the scenery.
To this end, special effects are needed to show such past wonders as a massive herd of buffalo and Montana's Great Falls. Overall, the film proudly celebrates Lewis & Clark's achievement and makes good use of the Imax format. Along with the narration read by Jeff Bridges, the film's reverential attitude toward the pre-industrial wilderness and its fauna both human and animal is a noble sentiment in the current climate of increased consumption of fossil fuels -- not to mention the management of rivers and problems of pollution.
"The equivalent of a mission to the moon."
Lewis and Clark, commissioned by Thomas Jefferson in 1804 to map and explore the great Northwest, spent 2.5 years hiking, climbing, boating from St. Louis to what is now Astoria, Oregon. This documentary follows the duo (played by two able actors) along with their crew through streams, rivers, prairies, mountains.
Jefferson's actual instructions: "The object of your mission is to explore the Missouri river, & such principal stream of it, as, by it's course and communication with the waters of the Pacific ocean, whether the Columbia, Oregon, Colorado or any other river may offer the most direct & practicable water communication across this continent for the purpose of commerce."
This straight-on documentary hosts no gimmicks. Though on occasion, a storm may have been manmade, or stunt man have slipped down a cliff; most of the images capture the adventurous restepping into the wide open, gloriously beautiful and oft times treacherous American Northwest.
Jeff Bridges narrates over seldom flashy, but consistently solid images of the undertaking: pulling boats through streams, sleeping in the snow, confronting and negotiating with Indians.
Quite a few "IMAXy" aerial shots are included. They're enjoyable, but I wanted each cut to hold longer (especially once over the peak). This would have provided even more contrast to the picture's quicker than normal-doc pace. Some memorable surface shots include a countryside full of buffalo (would have loved to see the Indians hunting them), a canoe-mounted-camera white-water rafting sequence, a bear attack shot from the P.O.V. of bear, a barking prairie dog.
The script is always interesting, always entertaining, politically sensitive (without going over the top).
We see the group picking berries, but never hunting and/or trapping. It's a hankering omission to a story of exploration and survival. In contrast, special attention is paid to an Indian woman and her infant child who joined the men for a substantial portion of the trip, contributing greatly to the mission as did other Indian tribes.
On a lighter note, one segment jerked this audience into a group chuckle. As the team prepared to canoe through some rocky rapids, "nearby tribes gathered to watch the white man drown."
My screening was based on an answer print, which had a few transition kinks to work out. We were told there may be some other changes including, perhaps, the ending music. I do hope that change doesn't take place ... I enjoyed that Native American sounding piece. Most likely I enjoyed the rest of the music, but as a good production will do, I was pulled in and not conscious of it.
Grade: Strong B+ [on a grading system with only A, B, and C]
[Score shown at RottenTomatoes.com is 2.5/4]
MOVIE REVIEW
LEWIS & CLARK: GREAT JOURNEY WEST
DIRECTOR: Bruce Neibaur
NARRATOR: Jeff Bridges
RUNNING TIME: 42 minutes
RATING: None
WHERE: Pacific Science Center
GRADE: A-
The 70 mm Imax format works best with stories that contrast breathtaking natural grandeur with inspiring human struggle, and the Pacific Science Center's latest big-screen offering, "Lewis & Clark: Great Journey West," splendidly fits this bill.
The film, which is co-sponsored by the Eddie Bauer Co. and the National Geographic Society and opens today at the Eames Imax Theater at Pacific Science Center, is an engrossing and eye-filling re-enactment of the famous journey timed to celebrate its 2003 bicentennial.
Narrated by Jeff Bridges with his typical laconic sincerity, and carried along by a particularly memorable score by composer Sam Cardon, the film is both a spectacular travelogue and an absorbing history lesson that even young children should be able to follow.
For the record, the Lewis and Clark Expedition was an ambitious undertaking inaugurated by President Jefferson to look for the fabled Northwest Passage and explore the vast tract of Louisiana Territory acquired from France in 1803 that more than doubled the size of the United States.
Under the co-command of Jefferson's 28-year-old secretary Meriwether Lewis and Lewis' close friend, William Clark, the Corps of Discovery set out by keelboat from St. Louis in May 1804 and returned 2 1/2 years later with only one loss of life.
In between, the party traveled up the Missouri River to its source, crossed the Rocky Mountains and traveled the Columbia River to the Pacific Ocean, mapping the terrain, collecting animal and plant specimens and interacting with Indian tribes that called the area home.
It was a remarkable feat -- equivalent in our own day, the film tells us, "to a journey to the moon" -- and was accomplished by the inspired leadership of the pair, a great deal of luck and the help of their 16-year-old, pregnant Native American interpreter and guide, Sacagawea.
In its re-creation of the highlights of this 8,000-mile odyssey, the film does an excellent job of communicating the sheer excitement of discovery the explorers must have felt and capturing the staggering beauty of the pristine wilderness all around them.
At 42 minutes, it makes no real attempt to probe the psyches of its characters. There's no clue, for instance, as to why Lewis would commit suicide three years after returning, or what the sexual tensions might have been in a party of dozens of lusty men and one woman.
But it's full of exhilarating sequences that use the big, big Imax screen to full advantage: runaway canoes careening down rapids, sweeping aerial shots of rivers and mountains and vast buffalo herds, intimate closeups of eagles and grizzlies and prairie dogs.
More than most Imax shorts, the script (by Mose Richards) manages to clearly and concisely establish the complex political background of the event, and director Bruce Neibaur uses computer-generated maps in a unique, visually striking manner that keeps us oriented in its progress.
Above all, the film manages to walk the tightrope of political correctness especially well: celebrating the courage and inevitability of the expedition while acknowledging the sad fact that it would annihilate the culture of the mostly helpful Native Americans it met along the way.
CAPTION:
The eye-filling Imax format spectacularly captures the natural beauty -- and obstacles -- encountered by the 1804 Lewis and Clark Expedition.
*** 1/2 [3 1/2 stars out of 4]
The latest six-story-high movie to arrive on the SuperScreen inspires awe in an American journey. And unlike some other large-format films, this one tells its story with refreshing understatement.
"Lewis & Clark: Great Journey West" whisks us away from St. Louis and across the prairie with the Corps of Discovery, into the great unknown as it looked in 1804. The filmmakers, including Utah director Bruce Neibaur of Draper, faced the challenge of finding locations free of modern clutter such as utility wires and railroad tracks. Fortunately for us, they did discover stretches of river, plains and mountains that look as they did when Meriwether Lewis and William Clark first saw them.
"Great Journey" lays out a wide range of facts that will have you shaking your head in amazement. The Corps of Discovery traveled for nearly two years against the Missouri's current. Near present-day Great Falls, Mont., the men had to carry dozens of heavy trunks some 17 miles around massive waterfalls -- and that was only one of many unforeseen detours.
Little, if anything, went as planned on the 8,000-mile trip. How could it, when the Corps set out across terrain whose maps were blank as a bedsheet? Yet Lewis and Clark had not a single major argument along the way.
Their footwear was thin leather, and their clothing no match for the 45-below-zero temperatures that befell them in the winter of 1804. But only one Corps member died during the expedition.
"Great Journey" also emphasizes aspects of the trip that have gained little attention in popular accounts. Sacagawea, the Shoshone wife of the Corps' hired interpreter Toussaint Charbonneau, is given ample credit for guiding the men. She also saved their possessions in a river accident and secured the horses they would need to cross the Bitterroot mountain range. And about halfway through the expedition, Sacagawea gives birth to Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, who's nicknamed Pomp, and carries him all the way to Oregon.
When the Corps finally reaches the West Coast, all of the adults, including Sacagawea and Clark's black slave, York, vote on where to set up their winter camp. It was November 1805, a moment of equality decades before American women and blacks won the right to vote. Sacagawea also epitomizes the American Indians -- the Shoshone, the Nez Perce and many other tribes -- who continually saved the Corps members' lives by giving them food, shelter, directions and horses. This points up a paradox. The white explorers, encountering Indian buffalo hunters near what is now Omaha, Neb., donned full military dress "to let them know . . . that the United States now claimed their land." But Lewis and Clark's crossing of the West was possible, by the travelers' accounts, only with the tribes' help.
"Great Journey's" narrator is Jeff Bridges, who gives the film a thoughtful tone far from the grandiosity of so many large-format features.
"Lewis & Clark: Great Journey West" is not rated but would probably receive a G. Running time: 45 minutes.
*** [3 out of 4 stars]
This historical documentary takes full advantage of the large-screen format to tell the story of the first American expedition to cross North American: 8,000 miles over 28 months. The explorers encountered hazardous weather and daunting terrain, but were aided at key points by native Americans. They brought back important new information on just what lay between the Mississippi River and the Pacific. Gorgeous aerial views of landscapes and huge buffalo herds are interspersed with dramatically reenacted scenes of running rapids or being chased by a grizzly, as a band of brothers (and a 16-year-old native American girl named Sacagawea) heads West.
"Lewis & Clark: Great Journey West" poses a few burning questions. Were the legendary explorers really this strapping and well-coiffed? Can everything be IMAX-ed? The answers: not so much and, sadly, no. "Lewis and Clark," the format's latest featurette, scantly justifies craning your head to scan the massive dome for the sight of a digitally enhanced buffalo stampede or to see the expedition's famous helpmeet, Sacagawea (Alex Rice), embrace estranged kin.
Almost 200 hundred years ago, Thomas Jefferson, recognizing a bargain when he saw one, snapped up the Louisiana Territory from Napoleon for a dirt-cheap $15 million. Jefferson then, in the fall of 1803, commissioned Meriwether Lewis and Lieutenant William Clark (Kelly Boulware and Sonny Surowiec) to see what was out there.
This represents a thousandth of the information lurking in Ken Burns's four-hour 1997 documentary. And it's unfair to compare Burns's epic to director Bruce Neibaur's comparatively modest account. But throughout, the suspicion predominates that the entire enterprise really isn't up to snuff for the demands of IMAX viewing.
Lewis and Clark never extinguish the oil fires of Kuwait, attack schools of fish at 20,000 leagues, or pull a Michael Jordan and leap through the air at the United Center. Here's to wishing they had. "Lewis & Clark" holds few visual spectacles (oooh, soaring aerial shots of the pastoral!) and relies on Jeff Bridges's lethargic narration for historical ones.
The explorers may have spent much of their 8,000-mile journey on the brink of starvation and death, but we share the experience only academically. Underwhelmed, you might wonder: All this suffering just to get to the beach?
PORTLAND, Ore. -- Our sense of adventure is somewhat jaundiced in the 21st century. We imagine the only real adventures, journeys of discovery, would have to be to Mars or some other distant planet.
Just consider Lewis and Clark and their journey of discovery, when a trip across what is now the United States was the equivalent of a journey to the moon.
In the new National Geographic film, "Lewis & Clark: Great Journey West," now at Oregon Museum of Science and Industry's Omnimax Theater, we get to go on that trip with Meriwether Lewis, William Clark and a group of 31 plucky explorers.
With a party including Sacagwea, a teenage American Indian woman, and her newborn son, the group tested the limits of physical endurance with the mission of expanding our knowledge of the land and waters to the west.
The large-format film (five stories tall) is a timely prelude to our celebration of the bicentennial of the 1803-1806 journey, which included a very rainy, flea-bitten winter spent at Fort Clatsop, near modern-day Astoria.
Though it's hard for us to recapture that sense of wonder and the sights of a still-pristine West, "Lewis & Clark: Great Journey West" does an admirable job of presenting us with a world little touched by the hand of man, a place where Lewis and Clark thought they might find woolly mammoths or other prehistoric creatures.
Producer Lisa Truitt said there were two huge challenges for the filmmakers: To capture a West of 200 years ago, without modern intrusions such as railroad tracks and river buoys, and telling this epic tale in just 40 minutes. Wildfires did force them to return six months later to Montana and Idaho to finish filming.
Although director Bruce Neibaur had to resort to some digital trickery at times, such as creating the sense of the vast herds of bison or buffalo, there is little sense that they stinted on capturing the varied vistas of waterfalls, rivers, plains, dense forests and snowy mountains necessary to capture the scope of the 8,000-mile journey.
Additionally, though this is necessarily shorthand history, the film captures the essentials of history, such as the historic moment when Sacagawea and Clark's slave, York, became the first woman and slave to vote.
The filmmakers also strongly note the fact that the explorers would have perished time and again without the help of the American Indians and even include the sad facts of Lewis' demise, believed to have been at his own hand.
Although we think of this as a pristine, uncivilized land at the time, there were in fact 170 different Indian tribes and hundreds of thousands of American Indians, all with cultures and intricate ways of life, inhabiting this country.
Actor Jeff Bridges narrates the film, which keeps a documentary quality by not using dialogue, except in one instance when Sacagawea meets her long lost brother, now chief of a tribe that consequently offers help to the explorers.
Even without dialogue and without much delineation of the individual explorers, the film does suggest the intrepid sense of adventure that drove Lewis and the strength and reliability of Clark, not to mention the often critical contributions of young Sacagawea.
There is memorable visual drama along the way, such as the explorers in a difficult portage around a waterfall that takes an extra month and a dangerous trip through whitewater that drew scores of American Indians expecting to see the explorers drown.
There is the awesome sight of the snowy Rocky Mountains, a seemingly impenetrable obstacle that drew the explorers close to starvation and exhaustion, and encounters with the wild animals, both playful (prairie dogs) and not-so-playful (an angry grizzly).
At the end, as the film notes, the party survived the 2 1/2-year journey with the loss of only one life, that due to natural causes, and effectively opened the West, with new and accurate maps and descriptions of at least 178 plant and 122 animals new to science.
"Together, they had blazed the path of their nation's future," Bridges says of Lewis and Clark.
Our sense of adventure is somewhat jaundiced in the 21st century. We imagine the only real adventures, journeys of discovery, would have to be to Mars or some other distant planet.
Just consider Lewis and Clark and their journey of discovery, when a trip across what is now the United States, including a trail through Idaho, was the equivalent of a journey to the moon.
In the new National Geographic film, "Lewis & Clark: Great Journey West," not yet available nationwide, we get to go on that trip with Meriwether Lewis, William Clark and a group of 31 plucky explorers.
With a party including Sacagewea, a teenage American Indian woman, and her newborn son, the group tested the limits of physical endurance with the mission of expanding our knowledge of the land and waters to the west.
Though it's hard for us to recapture that sense of wonder and the sights of a still-pristine West, "Lewis & Clark: Great Journey West" does an admirable job of presenting us with a world little touched by the hand of man, a place where Lewis and Clark thought they might find woolly mammoths or other prehistoric creatures.
Producer Lisa Truitt said there were two huge challenges for the filmmakers: to capture a West of 200 years ago, without modern intrusions such as railroad tracks and river buoys, and telling this epic tale in just 40 minutes. Wildfires did force them to return six months later to Montana and Idaho to finish filming.
Although director Bruce Neibaur had to resort to some digital trickery at times, such as creating the sense of the vast herds of bison or buffalo, there is little sense that they stinted on capturing the varied vistas of waterfalls, rivers, plains, dense forests and snowy mountains necessary to capture the scope of the 8,000-mile journey.
Additionally, though this is necessarily shorthand history, the film captures the essentials of history, such as the historic moment when Sacagewea and Clark's slave, York, became the first woman and slave to vote.
The filmmakers also strongly note the fact that the explorers would have perished time and again without the help of the American Indians and even include the sad facts of Lewis' demise, believed to have been at his own hand.
* [1 star out of 4]
THERE are a few spectacular visuals in this dramatization of the famed explorers' 8,000-mile trek in the early 19th century. But considering this is an IMAX movie being shown on a bigger-than-life screen, there should be a lot more.
At least they would have helped make up for the bland, uninspired narrative that is better suited to an educational cable-TV channel than a theatrical release.
Beautiful and dutiful, "Lewis & Clark: Great Journey West," opening today on the huge screen in the Loews Imax Theater at Lincoln Square in Manhattan, arrays visual spectacle, historical research and sociological sensitivity in a 42-minute retelling of the extraordinary expedition that blazed a trail across early America to its Manifest Destiny at the shores of the Pacific Ocean.
This handsome National Geographic Production, narrated by Jeff Bridges and scheduled to play in cities around the country through next year and into 2004, is timed to coincide with the bicentennial of the 8,000-mile expedition of the 31-member Corps of Discovery led by Capts. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. The expedition set out from St. Louis in 1803 under commission by President Thomas Jefferson to find the legendary but nonexistent Northwest Passage thought to connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
As retold with an emphasis on the majesty of the unspoiled and varied landscape that greeted the explorers' eyes -- broad rivers like the Missouri, gushing cataracts and perilous rapids; great plains vibrating with the thunder of an enormous herd of bison on the run; jagged snow-capped peaks; virgin forests -- this story draws upon letters and journals to recreate a daunting three-year journey into the unknown that it likens to a trip to the moon.
In its brevity, "Lewis & Clark" is but a once-over-lightly introduction to a feat of immense peril carried out with the loss of but one member of the expedition, which mapped the way west, applied science to the discovery and collection of wildlife specimens, and owed much to the friendship and cooperation of Indian tribes whose future it was to doom.
Not only does the film extol the determination and heroism of Lewis and Clark, but it also pays tribute to the vital contributions of their Indian interpreter, Sacagawea (pronounced here sa-CA-ga-WEE-ah, with a hard G, although the issue is in dispute), who gave birth to a son on the trip; and it acknowledges the role of York, Clark's black slave and companion.
Because this film, directed by Bruce Neibaur ("Mysteries of Egypt"), is not a fictionalized account but one vetted by historians like Stephen E. Ambrose, those in search of customary Hollywood conflict among the Corps of Discovery or with the Indians encountered along the way will not find their appetite for high drama or high body counts sated. But audiences who thrill to the beauty of these United States and to epic adventure may find that "Lewis & Clark: Great Journey West" whets their appetite to know more about this remarkable expedition and its impact on a young nation.