Directed by Frank Marshall (Arachnophobia) from a script by John Patrick Shanley (Joe Versus the Volcano), this adventure movie is based on the true story of the ten-week ordeal of survivors of a 1972 plane crash in the Andes. (Ultimately they survived by eating their dead companions.) There are a few good action sequences here, but one has to endure the long stretches between them, and the picture’s sense of character is so thin that one’s interest in the eventual outcome remains mainly academic. John Malkovich appears briefly and uncredited in a prologue and epilogue; the principal actors are Ethan Hawke, Vincent Spano, and Josh Hamilton. (JR)