In 1990, shortly after graduating from Emory University, Christopher McCandless decided to do something with his life.

And that something wasn’t about getting on with his adult life and becoming a regular member of “society, maaan,” but instead, McCandless burned the contents of his pockets including his money and all forms of identification, ceased communication with family and friends, and donated his trust fund to charity. Shedding his own self image and becoming Alexander Supertramp, McCandless set forth and hitchhiked across North America to reach his spiritual goal of Alaska, where he died of starvation, poisoning and I’m sure a mountain lion stabbed him with a shiv for good measure, too. And, by golly, it’s based on a true story too, so it must be important.

Here’s the thing about Into the Wild – and I want to stress that I’m trying to be as fair as possible about the film’s merits, of which, admittedly, there are a few. Sean Penn’s direction, while not bombastic, can still be rather striking at times. The performances are across the board and worth taking note of. And Emile Hirsh? Super crazy dedicated to his role. Although relatively episodic in nature, the film, taken on its cinematic merits is well worth your time.

BUT.

There is a big problem, and that problem lies in its main character Christopher McCandless. I’ll be up front and state that I haven’t read the book the film is based on, therefore my opinion is on the film and film alone – which I swear is unbiased, and I’ll tell you why if you come over to my apartment next week like you said you would – but don’t you think this McCandless guy was, how you say… Kind of an idealist douchebag? Maybe I should cut McCandless some slack, after all he was only 24 at the time of his death, and the young should be allowed a little optimism. But let’s just say that I felt the same way Christopher felt when I was younger – I wanted to run away to live in the desert after a friend and I found this abandoned couch out in the open. It’s all you need; a soft place to sleep and you can live off the land, wild and free, right? I was 14 when I thought this. And that couch got cold in the dead of harsh winter night. That’s about the time when you should let the dream die. But hey, at least Alexander Supertramp lived his dreams, and never gave up his ideals. Live by the sword, die by the sword, right?

Many compare the film to Werner Herzog’s Grizzly Man, but unfortunately Penn decides to deify Christopher McCandless, rather than taking Herzog’s rightful path towards condemnation. With Into the Wild, you can just feel Penn behind the scenes, snorting Oliver Stone-sized mountains of blow, going “You don’t understand, mannnnnnnn. Maybe it’s us who are in the prison, and Alexander Supertramp is the only one that’s truly free!” And here I am, in the middle of it all, only able to kick my television while shouting “Why don’t you join a drum circle, you hippie faggot?”

Presentation
Oh hey, I didn’t know Superbit DVDs were still being made… And were being released by Paramount instead of Sony. Found on disc one is the full two-and-a-half-hour film presented in impressive anamorphic widescreen 2.35:1 enhanced for 16x9 televisionoscopic screens, along with 5.1 soundtracks in English, Spanish and French flavors. Alas, I am broke, and had to settle for the 2.0 surround option, which is an option that is quietly disappearing from DVDs anyway, so I appreciate the feature. The film takes place in a variety of terrains and therefore doesn’t suffer from the dull haze of snow-on-snow that, say, Snow Buddies suffered from. The soundtrack manages to one-up the visuals in terms of subtleness by mainly featuring Eddie Vedder tinkling a guitar while probably lamenting. I’m not impressed, Vedder.

Extras
Into The Wild is presented in two distinct flavors, the barebones single-disc release, which only features a collection of trailers, and the two-disc release. The first disc is identical to the one-disc (as opposed to say, the commentaryless single disc release of Transformers – a fact I was not aware of when I loaded the disc into my player, ready to get my Bay on), but the second disc has, of course, extras exclusive to this and this set alone. But instead of some absurd overkill you’d find on a Judd Apatow release, we’re only getting two passable features: Into The Wild: The Story, The Characters and Into The Wild: The Experience. These are two, standard issue, 20-minute making-of features that, when combined (including the theatrical trailer) run about 40 minutes long. That’s right: an entire disc dedicated to roughly 40 minutes of material. Oh wait – there’s a set-up menu that lets you choose some subtitles. Impressive, huh?

Overall
Into The Wild is not a bad film, but your mileage will vary depending on how you view Christopher McCandless as a person. And I must admit, if I were to watch this film when I was, say, 15, I would have been right there with Alexander Supertramp, but as an adult, I only see an intelligent, but wholly misguided soul – and trying to make him a hero figure borders on true tastelessness. The film probably deserves every positive and negative comment it’s gotten. As for the DVD, you might as well save a couple of bucks and pick up the single-disc edition, because nothing on the two disc set is going to blow your socks off.