I am still trying to figure out how the canoe magically transported itself across the shaky bridge to the mountain lake. The scenery in the movie is outstanding but the progression of the changing geography and scenes makes less sense than the story line. I give the movie a 2 for the scenery.And now I am required to write an addition 5 lines that no one will read. Let's see. the river rescue scene at the end. At first Alan and Kevin Bacon's character start out on a huge river which narrows down to a much smaller white water river. Nowhere in the world does this happen Somehow Alan by himself gets Kevin with a broken leg down off the mountain and loads him in the canoe for the final white water scenes. There are numerous dumb inconsistencies in the story line just like that. Maybe the way to watch this is every time the movie flubs is take a straight shot. Then by the end you will not notice or care about all the lame mistakes.

Kevin Bacon is a "crystals and angels" spiritualist who leads a pack of teenage boys into the mountains, and then pulls some really weird stuff in an attempt to teach them to be men.Sean Astin is quite young here, and demonstrates his incredible acting talents, even then. In fact, all the performances are exemplary, and the story is interesting. The photography is absolutely beautiful, and even the score is wonderful. The rock songs don't seem to quite belong, but in the 1980's, that didn't seem to matter much to anyone.This used to serve as a motivational movie for me, but lately, I find I get more motivation from Monster Squad. For one, you do have to suspend your belief for prolonged periods, knowing all along that things would not have worked out as they did.All in all, it's a good Sunday afternoon movie, but not much more than that unless you're a film student.It rates a 5.8/10 from...the Fiend :.

Nice movie for a Saturday afternoon. Loved the performance of Kevin Bacon, though he did seem rather to change from being a good leader to a bullying one from one minute to the next, without the viewers ever really knowing why.One thing makes me curious, how did they get the canoe over the rope bridge?!! They had enough trouble crossing it on their own, wonder how they managed it...General storyline is believable - majority of the party being the outdoorsy type, enjoying every minute of it but showing fear on occasion, plus the odd one out, who really seems to get the rough end of everything.

I used to love White Water Summer, but these days, when I pop the old copy into the VCR, I just can't seem to get through the whole thing without getting annoyed. White Water Summer is about Alan's summer camp experience in the mountains with four other boys and Vic (Kevin Bacon), their psychotic New Age camp counselor who's wacky methods are supposed to teach the boys about real living. The story is told in flashback format, narrated by a much older Astin (who plays Alan, young and old) revisiting the those couple of days or weeks in the mountains. I suspect they took a break in filming, probably as Astin and others worked on other projects, knowing that pre-peubescent Astin would grow quickly and fill the shoes of the movie's older, wiser teen. Alan is recruited by some nut named Vic, a guy who actually hikes to his family's home in the city. Alan, the little whiner that he is, doesn't really want to spend the summer with a bunch of boys, but reluctantly agrees, pretending to share his father's enthusiasm in the whole idea. On the trip with Alan is Mitch (Jonathan Ward), probably Alan's only friend along the way, and two smart ass jerks, Chris (Matt Adler) and George (K.C. Martel). They each have their various learning experiences hiking in and around the mountains. But, things get out of hand along the way when Vic pulls some nasty business on his recruits, and Alan starts to suspect Vic is way out of line. Unfortunately, he's got to grow up and start taking care of things himself, because he's the only one willing to stand up to Vic. This movie has a lot of good things going for it. The photography is really beautiful, filmed mostly in New Zealand locations. The music is pretty good too, with ample sounds from the Cult, Bruce Hornsby, and the Cutting Crew (whad'ya know, they did have more songs thatn I Just Died in Your Arms Tonight). The big draw maybe the cast, with the obvious audience appeals of Astin, Bacon, and possibly Matt Adler. Unfortunately, it is one of the few things you'll be able to see both Jonathan Ward or K.C. Martel in. Ward was on the later seasons of Charels and Charge, appeared in Mac & Me (an E.T. ripoff), but never really did much. Martel, who was George in E.T., goes on to appear in a few things, mostly later episodes of Growing Pains in which he plays Mike Seaver's friend, Eddie. It's worth a try. It can always suffice as a lazy day kind of movie.