Dumbfounded, the hapless viewer sits through this run-of-the-mill outdoor adventure and wonders for whom this wilderness ramble was intended. Although it's designed as a kiddy adventure, it's stocked with cliched, adolescent-troublemaker characters played by young adult stars too old for
these jejune activities.
Animal activist Ben Harris (Corin Nemec) annually employs delinquent teens in his ongoing crusade to take wolves off the endangered species list. This summer, his crew is composed of graffiti renegade Steve (Ernie Reyes Jr.), sneak thief Crystal (Elizabeth Berkley), and violent-tempered nihilist
Beri (Ele Keats), who has a bigger chip on her shoulder than any found on the nearby mountains. En route to retrieving a hidden camera, which has been charting wolves in their natural habitat, Ben's fledgling staff shoots the rapids, hones survival skills, and learns to put personal differences
aside.
During the course of their on-the-job training, the wildlife recordists meet two paragliding brothers, braggart Mason (Jeremy London) and his passive-aggressive sibling Jeff (Justin Whalin). Ben saves two orphaned cubs, but Steve, Crystal, and Beri endanger the baby wolves when they decide to hang
out with Jeff and Mason. After show-off Mason wipes out in a crash-landing, Ben decides to accompany him to a first-aid station and to entrust his lupine studies to his anxious crew. While rafting to civilization, Ben and Mason are both seriously injured in a capsizing accident. Initially
panicking, Ben's summer crew persuades chicken-hearted Jeff to paraglide for emergency help. After Mason and Ben are airlifted to safety and they recuperate, Beri, Crystal, Steve, and Jeff remain behind to complete Ben's cataloguing work with the unearthed camera.
My, my, my, how quickly those long-in-the-tooth teens brave adversity, swallow their pride, and pitch in to conserve the wolf population. With the flimsiest of screenwriting barriers blocking their way, the city slickers acquire respect for Mother Nature and for themselves in record time.
Mesmerized by the splendid scenery, the audience may be lulled into enjoying WHITE WOLVES II as a "National Geographic" special interrupted by bouts of unfulfilling drama. What's so preposterous about this travelogue adventure is that it appears to have been written with problem children in mind,
but then it was filmed with older delinquent characters instead. The screenwriter has little understanding of kids or teens. Too tame for young adults, who will require a lot more violence than this movie's Smokey the Bear attack on a pup-tent, WHITE WOLVES II will conversely tick off youngsters
who will wonder what these mature adolescents are doing usurping their own Outward Bound fantasies. As a result, this Save-the-Wolves odyssey plays to an empty house.
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