MOVIE REVIEW : ‘Alive’ Doesn’t Live Up to Its Potential : None of the film’s elements takes the extra step that separates inspired films from the more conventional ones.

“Alive” is going to do wonders for in-flight safety. A solid, straightforward re-creation of a terrifying 1972 plane crash in the Andes and its unsettling aftermath, “Alive’s” careful You Are There qualities will have even chronic scofflaws buckling those seat belts like there is no tomorrow.

In truth, “Alive” (citywide) does everything it ought to except the one thing you really want with a story like this, and that is transcend its material. A once-in-a-lifetime situation, filled with incidents that almost defy belief, calls for more of a once-in-a-lifetime movie, and that is beyond this film’s powers.

Taken from Piers Paul Read’s international best-selling account of what happened on that frigid, snow-covered mountaintop between Argentina and Chile, “Alive” has avoided the more obvious mistake of letting the audience off the hook by soft-pedaling the horrors the crash survivors faced.

Rather its shortfall is that none of the film’s elements, from the acting to the script credited to John Patrick Shanley to Frank Marshall’s direction, has managed to crank themselves up that one step beyond that separates inspired films from more conventional ones. While its not in the cards for a story like this to lose our interest, this version doesn’t enhance it either.

Flying over the Andes in a chartered plane was nothing special for the Uruguayan rugby squad “Alive” focuses on. Traveling with family members and friends, the young team members horse around and make jokes, oblivious to the harsh terrain around them. “Are we supposed to fly that close to the mountains,” someone idly asks, but no one thinks much about it.

Then comes the crash, and a very detailed and realistic one it is, as the wings shear off one by one, the fuselage cracks and passengers go flying out the back to oblivion. (“Alive” is in fact rated R for “crash scenes too intense for unaccompanied children.”) The cigar-shaped center section finally comes to rest on a snowbank in the middle of a frozen nowhere and the real terror begins.

Initially there is chaos, as the survivors focus on determining who is dead, who is dying, and who is still alive and capable of helping the others. The injured, often crushed by the seats behind them, are moaning things like “I’m in pain, I’m in so much pain” as the reality of their cold, isolated situation sinks in.

Though optimistic souls think rescue is imminent, this turns out to be very much not the case and one of more interesting things about “Alive” is the way the mantle of leadership gradually shifts over time. The most obvious choice and the initial take-charge guy is team captain and medical student Antonio (Vincent Spano), but events soon overtake him and as the days without rescue lengthen into weeks, the more unconventional Nando (Ethan Hawke) becomes the de facto leader.

Hawke, a vital young actor best known for his role in “Dead Poets Society,” is, along with Spano, the film’s most recognizable face, and the strength of his performance points up one of “Alive’s” weaknesses. Though overstuffing disaster movies with movie stars is a perennial Hollywood foible, this film goes too far in the opposite direction. With the great majority of the dozen or so primary crash victims being played by unfamiliar actors, it takes most of the film to figure out who is who, and time better spent worrying about a particular character’s fate is instead expended trying to remember exactly who he is.

And, except for the intense discussions that develop when necessity forces the survivors to consider cannibalism if they are to have any hope of getting out alive, the script, which lacks the spirit of Shanley’s most characteristic work, doesn’t give these young men anything very interesting to say, a problem that the film’s indifferent staging of conversations invariably compounds.

What “Alive” does best is place you on that mountain (the film was in fact shot on a remote glacier in British Columbia) and pile physical detail upon physical detail until the cumulative effect of this daunting story of indomitability and endurance can’t help but involve you to a certain extent.

But even at this level, the lack of transcendence remains a problem. “Alive’s” characters, particularly John Malkovich in a brief and confusing prologue, talk a lot about spirituality and the experience of higher states of mind, but saying it and conveying it are very different things, and that is one mountain “Alive” is never able to climb.

‘Alive’

Ethan Hawke: Nando Parrado

Vincent Spano: Antonio Balbi

Josh Hamilton: Roberto Canessa

Bruce Ramsay: Carlitos Paez

John Haymes Newton: Tintin

David Kriegel: Gustavo Zerbino

Kevin Breznahan: Roy Harley

Touchstone Pictures and Paramount Pictures present a Kennedy/Marshall production, released by Buena Vista Pictures. Director Frank Marshall. Producers Robert Watts, Kathleen Kennedy. Screenplay John Patrick Shanley from the book by Piers Paul Read. Cinematographer Peter James. Editor Michael Kahn, William Goldenberg. Costumes Jennifer Parsons. Music James Newton Howard. Production design Norman Reynolds. Art director Frederick Hole. Set decorator Tedd Kuchera. Running time: 2 hours, 5 minutes.

MPAA-rated R (crash scenes too intense for unaccompanied children).