No, this is not the 1978 "Avalanche" movie starring Rock Hudson and Mia Farrow. This review is of the 1999 version starring Thomas Ian Griffith and Caroleen Feeney (I don't who they are either).

The film starts out with three friends The Hero (TH), Dead Guy (DG), and Female Love Interest (FLI) doing some stuff that's supposed to develop their characters, and then they all hop in a helicopter and fly to the top of an Alaskan mountain in the winter where DG and FLI tell TH to pick them up in three hours. DG and FLI then proceed to trek out with no supplies whatsoever. So we're supposed to buy the fact that they can survive in light clothing, with no supplies, on top of an Alaskan mountain in the winter. For three hours. Yeah.

TH goes to hang out at the oil refinery where he works, when something goes wrong and the refinery blows up. There are lots of classic shots of really obvious models getting destroyed by flames way out of proportion to the models. We also get to witness some barely concealed wire stunts as firefighters get "blown away" by the explosions. This is only a taste of things to come in the hilarious climax.

The explosion also triggers an avalanche on the mountain where DG and FLI are, and they try to outrun it on skis. DG falls, and we see a dummy get engulfed by the snow. FLI is seen fleeing from the avalanche in front of a bad blue screen composite before getting buried.

TH races up to the mountain and finds that he is too late to rescue DG but is just barely in time to save the life of FLI. We also learn that down in the town (we're never really told what town -- it's just The Town) some Old Dude (OD) is upset that some doctor's wife got killed. Of course, FLI blames TH for the death of her beau, and they don't talk to each other again until....

Two years later we see FLI is now working with the EPA and is trying to block a pipeline that she thinks will be in danger of causing an avalanche to crash down on the city of Juneau. The people in the boardroom are upset and call in TH to talk some sense into her. TH psychologically attacks her and tells her she's biased because she's never faced the death of DG. I mean, the guy really lays into her! After pretty much ruining her credibility, he basically says, "So how you doing? How come you never called me?" I mean, the guy just finished pouring salt over some very old wounds, and then he wants to have a nice chit-chat with her.

So FLI decides to do a visual inspection of the pipeline. While driving somewhere, she and TH see a dead wolf, and she decides to take a blood sample. Oh, but she has nothing to carry it in, so TH offers her a flask of whiskey, and she empties it out and puts the blood sample in the flask. Wouldn't that, you know, contaminate the sample? ("Great Scott! This wolf died of extreme alcohol poisoning!") No, the sample is perfect, and she determines that the wolf died from something to do with this new pipeline.

She presents her findings to board, and they are again unhappy. She tells them that she is going to fly up to some ridge and look over the pipeline personally. TH takes her in a helicopter, and while they're looking the pipeline over, they discover that it is cracking because of substandard materials. And then an avalanche starts, and we get to see some very bad acting as FLI "panics." We also see some more of the corny blue screen and model shots that highlight the film's climax. FLI and TH are suspicious that the avalanche was started on purpose, but they can't prove it.

Well, to make a long movie short, despite FLI's best attempts, the company decides to go ahead and use the pipeline. Of course, it starts an avalanche that threatens to come crashing down on the sleepy town of Juneau. This is where things really get fun. We are treated to all kinds of really bad model work and blue screen effects. I mean, the effects are so incredibly bad that my wife and I laughed out loud throughout the entire last twenty minutes. The sad part is, you can tell that the filmmakers really were trying be convincing at depicting a town getting ravaged by an avalanche. But the model work! It's terrible! Like the refinery explosion, things are way out of proportion. We see HUGE chunks of snow and ice crash through plastic buildings. In an attempt to make the models look more realistic, real people were poorly composited in the frame, making things look laughably worse.

There's even one classic shot where people are running around in a panic, yet in the middle of the frame is a woman standing perfectly still and staring straight at the camera. Surreal.

Well, the avalanche doesn't totally destroy the town, but another one is threatening to happen, so TH and FLI have this great plan: They'll take some remotely detonated explosives and start a second avalanche that will divert the first one away from the town. Bright plan! But before that, TH runs into OD. It turns out that he was actually having an affair with the old woman, and all these years he's blamed himself for her death, but he couldn't share his grief because he wanted to protect her reputation. (He's all heart, you know?) So it was he who had ordered substandard materials for the pipeline and he who had covered things up and he who purposely set off an avalanche in an attempt to kill TH and FLI. You see, his plan all along was to cause an avalanche to come down and destroy the town and kill him so that he could once again be with "her." In other words, the whole conspiracy that is the center of the film's plot was just an elaborate suicide plan by the Old Dude. Really! He dies in the avalanche and cries out the only memorable line in the whole film: "The awesome power of nature that took her from me will now take me to her!"

Of course, setting off the second avalanche diverts the first avalanche and saves the town (we're treated to a wonderful shot of a poorly constructed model that's supposed to be the safe town), and TH and FLI live happily ever after. Just before credits, FLI lets out an extremely feeble "Yahoo!" The actress actually looked embarrassed to be uttering this.

Rating: 3 1/2 turkeys (four if you live or used to live in Alaska where this movie was shot because you may derive some enjoyment simply from recognizing some familiar locations.)