Walking Thunder (1995) User Reviews (9)

Great Adventure

[roedyg · 7/10 · 21 September 2014]

This is a great adventure, with big brassy exciting score. The golden leaves of autumn in the mountains are breathtaking. An unbelievably enormous bear attacks a covered waggon, and demolishes it, even breaking the axle, leaving the family in a major survival predicament.

The movie teaches some pretty silly lessons. It goes to great lengths to make this appear to be a true story. Yet it teaches fate -- that the outcomes of conflicts are decided in advance. It teaches there are bear deities who interfere in the affairs of man, both to destroy and help. It teaches that shamans have magic powers.

A boy is sent with the family fortune to buy a cow for milk for a expected infant. (I don't think people fed cow milk to infants back then.) Instead he buys a rifle. The second rifle comes in handy fighting off "burglars", and the boy is credited with amazing foresight instead of gross disobedience.

The "burglars" are mentally challenged, and over the top crazy evil in the style of Peter Pan's pirates or Blazing Saddles. They imagine a frontier family stranded in the mountains has sacks of gold, and cannot be dissuaded.

The director repeatedly puts small cuddly baby animals in the rifle sites, pauses, then the execution is aborted for a variety of reasons. It a mean-spirited teasing of the younger audience who think he will carry through.

The John Denver plays the bespectacled father, a secondary role. His kids won't mind him or respect him. His wife berates him for his lack of skill and their current predicament. His kids compare him with a mountain-man who helps them out, and Pa comes up lacking, though he eventually earns respect by defeating a desperado in a fist fight (though the desperado has a huge knife). This outcome is as improbable as Woody Allen taking out Mohammed Ali in 1972 given that Pa has never been in a fist fight before.

Mom wears lipstick. Dad and the mountain man are partly cleanshaven. A single barrel of something not destroyed by the bear seem sufficient for a family of four plus two guests for a winter. Really?

There are black, white, native, French, etc. characters, all living a somewhat dissolute and riotous life in shanty towns. There is one scene of drunken prostitution that might frighten off a Christian viewer. This melange is one part of the movie that was close to factual.

Decent. Not Great. But decent.

[kingofdanerds · 7/10 · 9 November 2020]

What can I say about this film? It is not a very well known film, but it is most definitely a more well known film than the films that I have been reviewing lately. I have three different years tied to this film but I believe this film was made in 1994, released in 1995, widely released in 1997. (Don't hold me on those). Walking Thunder notably stars John Denver in one of his final film roles before his death in 1997. Other than John Denver, Bart the Bear is the only other actor I noticed in this film.

Walking Thunder starts in the relative present day where a kid is visiting his grandma. His grandma decides to show him a box of old stuff from way back in the mid 1800's. She said that his dad learned about their family from way back when and she thinks that it is time that he learns as well. In the box is a journal which is what this story is. We see the McKay family coming from New Hampshire to California to start a new life. One night, their wagon breaks so they decide to build their home there. They meet a mountain man named Abner Murdock and a Sioux Indian named Dark Wind. Also, there is a bear named Walking Thunder. Both Abner Murdock and Dark Wind decide to help the McKay family get started on their new life.

I enjoy movies that take place in the mid 1800's It is just something about them that seem to appeal to me. Walking Thunder is one of those films that I find appealing. It actually is not bad. Not great, but still decent. The story is a typical story of a family moving to a new place to start a new life only to find that they need assistance from the locals. The part of the story that I do not like is that they add the kid at the very beginning and the very end reading the journal. To me, it could have been removed for the fact that those are the only two instances that it appears in. The beginning and the end. But with that being said, the film does have me invested (even though it does not have 100 percent of the time). But when it does, the film is quite enjoyable to watch. The acting is fine here with John Denver giving a really good performance. The only person was the kid playing the main character. Maybe it was his voice that I found annoying..... The film is called Walking Thunder which is the name of the bear in this film. It took me a while to realize (and only then it was the film that told me) what Walking Thunder represents. Walking Thunder represents the land. Honestly, I can buy that even though I would have loved to see a bear terrorize this family or prove troublesome in some way. But, it does make sense. This film has this theme about becoming a man with our main character having to step up. There are several instances when this does become apparent. I know several of the other films that I watched in the Echo Bridge 8 Adventure Collection, they try to have this grand theme (which in most cases is what makes the film not very good). With this film, the theme is not all that grand but much like everything else in this film, I can buy it even though I can have something a little better. The whole scenery in this film is fairly beautiful and I am glad that the people working on this film decided to use this opportunity to get some beautiful shots of the land. If you are someone who has not been in that area, films like this give you a viewing of what it is like. I suppose that is why films like this appeal to me. The score is fairly nice here as well. The characters here are alright. There are typical bad guys here and there is something that bothers me here. Why do they wear the brightest clothes they can find? They wear bright red clothing and it is like "Do you want to be seen?" That is one thing that I do not buy in this film is the bad guys attire. It really bothers me.

Walking Thunder is a decent film. It gives just enough that I buy it, but I could give a little bit more.

Unexceptional family film

[Wizard-8 · 31 January 2016]

I really enjoyed the family movie "The Long Road Home" by prolific family filmmaker Craig Clyde, so I sat down to watch Clyde's "Walking Thunder" with some enthusiasm. Sad to say, this particular effort is pretty disappointing. Like TLRH, this movie didn't have much of a budget; there's little in the way of production values, unless you count the admittedly spectacular Utah scenery. But TLRH had things to make up for the low budget like a solid script and good acting. This particular script is lumbering and padded out. (And what's with the set-in-present bookends? They don't add anything to the story!) The acting by the almost totally amateur cast is pretty mediocre. The one star in the cast (if you don't count narrator Brian Keith), John Denver, seems bewildered by his surroundings. About the only positive things to say about this exercise are the pretty good musical score and a balanced view about how Native Americans were in the frontier west. But these things aren't enough to prevent kids as well as their parents from fidgeting in their seats while watching this.

Ho hum but watchable -- beware racial slurs.

[inkwolf · 4/10 · 21 January 2006]

I agree with the former reviewer about the cabin. I mean, they are trapped in the wilderness because this guy, who can build a log cabin in one day, CAN'T FIX A WAGON AXLE BEFORE WINTER! Sheesh, believable. I'm sure wagon axles were a lot tougher to make than houses.

You also may not want to show it to impressionable young Indian kids, since some characters use derogatory language and racial slurs, and the one Indian character is something of a stereotype.

The movie won't make you laugh or cry, but it won't kill you with boredom either, and if you have the hour and a half to kill, there are worse things to watch out there. Bart the Bear is always good, and there are a few charming moments.

Charming

[astoryweaver · 10/10 · 2 September 2004]

This was said to be John Denver's last film. As I watched it, I couldn't help but feel sadness over that aspect. I thought this was a wonderful family film with John Denver playing a role I had longed wanted to see him in. A pioneer. A man blazing a wild mountain trail in a covered wagon. Being in the Rockies, with native Americans, bears, eagles, wolves, and mountain men. The story was very well told. The actors all played their roles to perfection. I love these kind of stories. Whenever they are made on modern film, we are able to re-live the past with these stories. I remember seeing James Reed in the mini-series North and South. I liked him as the Union soldier. He was great in this as well. The boys who played John Denver's sons looked familiar, but I couldn't place them in other projects. Entertainment Tonight highlighted the story about this final film. I wouldn't have known about it otherwise. When it was shown on cable, my sister taped it for me to see. All in all, this film will be forever treasured by true-blue John Denver fans. And we all wish, more than anything, that he was still around to give us more of the same. Ten plus in my book.

Missing The Great John Denver

[astoryweaver · 10/10 · 6 July 2003]

Entertainment Tonight previewed this wonderful little film as being the last thing John Denver made. It makes me sad to think this wonderful entertainer is gone from this world and will never make anything else for us to enjoy. I wish his role could have been larger and broader. He was a great actor in addition to being a great singer. We miss you in this world, J. D.

Corrections, if you please

[one189teen50five · 10/10 · 3 September 2009]

I had to laugh at the remarks of several saying "the cabin was built in one day". That is as ridiculous as the remarks were. The cabin was built over several weeks, those weeks not filmed. The oldest son went with the mountain man to get supplies. It took much longer in those days to get to places. They had no corner markets, 7-11s, etc. Come on. Common sense teaches you that much. What else did they have to do but work on the cabin from sun up to sun down? They sure didn't have a TV to sit and watch. The era they represented was done so accordingly. Do not be critical of this tale. Perhaps a lot more footage was left off. We do not know. I wish the DVD had the extra stuff in it, but it does not.

Slight but entertaining

[desperado1uk · 2 March 2001]

This is the sort of 'great outdoors' movies that you can watch once, enjoy, and then promptly forget about. The movie provides a good sweep of Colorado, and the story - about a family trying to catch up with the gold rush - passable. However, when all the humans on stage are out acted by Bart the Bear, you know you are watching a straight-to-video movie. John Denver, the only recognisable actor, stares into space for long periods of times (probably writing a song for his next album), and all the others are Legends of the Fall rip-offs. However, the most amusing sequence in when Denver erects and furnishes a cabin in about an hour. Don't let me put you off, this is lightweight entertainment and good fun when there are nothing but repeats on the T.V.

Best Bit: Bart the Bear's dramatic drooling.

Bear or Holy Man saves pioneer family.

[cullen4u · 3 August 2001]

This movie was shown on the Discovery-Animal Planet network.

The bear, if there ever really was a bear, is the second supporting character. A delight and disconcerting at the same time. There is a native-american belief that animals could take on human bodies and vise-versa. This idea was only briefly exposed in a few spots.

The opening scenes are of a modern teenager who has problems. What teen doesn't, especially about parents? He learns he is to inherit his great-grandfathers journal and other personal affects. The journal was written late in life and starts with problems encountered while moving west in the fall of 1850. Time shifts to and from 1850 carry the story back and forth as the youngster reads about his ancestor, his problems, ideas, hopes and fears. They are similar to his.

Historical discrepancy aside this movie would appeal to

teens and adults. As with all material one should inspect and verify fact and falsehood. The lad was allowed to travel with a "real live mount'n man" to trade for supplies. The last rendezvous took place in the spring of 1840, ten years before this family arrived in the Rockies.

Background views are great. The highest points of violence were a skillet defense by an expectant mother against a scalp'n knife wielding attacker and a couple of daring fisticuff events. Alfred

Hitchcock would be proud of the drama left to the viewer.