SPIRIT OF THE EAGLE

If you like wilderness and wildlife scenery, don’t mind hokey sentimentalism and are willing to overlook some glaring implausibilities bordering almost on the metaphysical, then you might enjoy this family-entertainment story in which “Grizzly Adams” TV star Dan Haggerty explores and maps out uncharted wilderness with his son, Little Eli and a Golden Eagle.

Little Eli narrates the tale, set in 1851, in which he is then a 10-year-old joining his father, Big Eli, a cartographer, who has been hired by the Army’s Corp of Engineers to map out the great Northwest. Since the time period is one where the selling and trading of precious furs makes some men “less than honorable,” Little Eli and his ‘pa are opposed early on by a trio of unsavory river pirates, led by a one-eyed murderous trapper named Hatchett.

Father and son, having been separated due to the loss of the boy’s mother, are now returning to Big Eli’s wilderness cabin where Big Eli renews the bond with his son by teaching him about the various animals of the forest. The critters, though, look unusually friendly, fat and tamed like they’ve been shipped in from the local game ranch. The action is correspondingly tame. See Eli play with a raccoon, a deer, an owl, or whatever else.

Eli introduces his young son to a beautiful, majestic Golden Eagle named Lady, whom he rescued when the bird was orphaned as a chick. The two have since become inseparable, and Lady always travels with Big Eli, acting as his guiding light while he maps out uncharted wilderness.

The film seems to suggest further that Big Eli, spiritually connected with all living things, shares a special telepathic link with Lady. This particular trait (which should be overlooked because it is just a plot device to move the action from one locale to another) comes in handy when Eli goes off to map-make and Lady comes to tell him that his boy is in trouble. Specifically, Hatchett has kidnapped and sold him to an Indian tribe. So Eli fights an Indian warrior to get his son back, makes friends with the tribe and then goes off to track down the villains.

Only Hatchett shoots Eli first and leaves him for dead. Once more a harbinger, Lady brings the news to Little Eli and a squaw named Watawna. They follow Lady to Big Eli, build a makeshift stretcher and drag him home by horseback.

The big guy eventually recovers, only to confront Hatchett and his cohorts again who, in a grave miscalculation, shoot Lady out of the sky. Eli squares off against Hatchett one-on-one in the rapids, with the movie conveniently sidestepping the issue of revenge by having Eli unable to hang onto his grasping hand. Lady is nursed back to health, and in the end, Big Eli, Little Eli and Watawna trek off together, with Lady soaring high above to guide them safely on their way.

SPIRIT OF THE EAGLE is an acceptable movie. The scriptwriting and acting could have been a lot better, but it still deserves credit for the pro-family values communicated. Little Eli, for instance, is enamored by his father’s wildlife paradise and is anxious to prove that he belongs in this rugged world alongside him. In addition, the film teaches respect for nature, animals and our fellow human beings.

However, as far as the bird is concerned, everyone’s priorities are in the wrong place. These characters are more loving, caring, hopeful in, and dependent on this bird than on each other. Still, you could do much worse at the video store than the SPIRIT OF THE EAGLE.