Iron Will is yet another of a recent series of Disney pictures in which one or more plucky youngsters excel at a colorful sport while overcoming great obstacles and saving the family farm.
Usually they save the farm only metaphorically, but in this case, a literal farm is at stake; after 17-year-old Will Stoneman s dad dies, it s up to Will (Mackenzie Astin) to win the $20,000 prize in a 500-mile dogsled race, in order to pay off the mortgage.
After Cool Runnings, about a Jamaican bobsled team, and The Air Up There, about an African who becomes a U.S. basketball star, Iron Will kinda makes you wonder what s next. How about a kid from Sri Lanka who dreams of becoming the world s best thumb wrestler? Some Evanstonians who yearn to be champion pearl divers? There are certain obligatory scenes that define the genre. First we see the hero in ordinary everyday circumstances (Will delivers the mail by dogsled in the frozen reaches of North Dakota). Then we get a brief glimpse of h