White Fang (1991)

White Fang, Jack London's classic novel about a young adventurer who befriends a wolf-dog in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness has a lot of built-in hooks: scenes of bad guys abusing the animal and training him to be a killer; teary, Lassie Come Home reunions; our hero discovering gold in them thar hills. Yet despite some splendid snowcapped vistas and one rather frightening grizzly-bear attack, this new screen version is dramatically inert. Nothing in the picture really takes hold — certainly not the relationship between Jack (Ethan Hawke) and White Fang, who seem like near-strangers even at the final clinch. C-