Review: The Wild

Paternal lion Samson (voiced by Kiefer Sutherland) and a few animal colleagues escape their New York zoo in pursuit of Samson’s son Ryan, who has fled in embarrassment after failing to deliver a mighty roar. Unfortunately, he has unwittingly boarded a ship of animals headed back to the wild. Ryan has grown up entirely at the zoo, and thus Samson is worried his son is ill-equipped to survive in the wild. Samson is accompanied by a squirrel named Benny (voiced by Jim Belushi), giraffe Bridget (voiced by Janeane Garofalo), lethargic koala Nigel (voiced by Eddie Izzard), and a snake called Larry (voiced by Richard Kind). Along the way, the gang finds out that Samson isn’t the almighty king of the beasts that they thought him to be, and they encounter a herd of nasty wildebeests, headed by Kazar (voiced by William Shatner!).

 

Cute animals and lovely colours aren’t enough to make much out of this 2006 animated film from director Steve ‘Spaz’ Williams (who comes from an FX/animation background on big films like “Terminator 2: Judgement Day” and “The Mask”), which has earned the ire of some for ripping off DreamWorks’ “Madagascar”. I’m not even gonna touch that debate with a 50ft pole. I just think this is a disappointing, underwhelming film from The Magic Kingdom. It’s awfully slight and hasn’t been made with adults in mind at all. It’s purely a kids film, which is fine, but I’m an adult and can only view it from my POV. I didn’t get into this one.

 

The array of different animals is pretty interesting, but there’s some really odd stuff going on here. For starters, Men at Work front man Colin Hay (A Scottish-born Aussie) voices a flamingo, but cross-dressing Brit Eddie Izzard is chosen to voice a koala with the very Aussie name of Nigel. Who misquotes Churchill at one point, I might add. Koalas are Australian. Very, very Australian. Izzard is very, very British. I know that there’s a Canadian voicing an African lion, but c’mon, we all know that Izzard is just wrong for the part, and someone screwed up. Thankfully they at least get the lazy, somewhat stoned demeanour of a koala down, but whoever approved the casting of Izzard is either culturally ignorant or just plain stupid (Did I mention that the director is called ‘Spaz’? Just sayin’…) My guess is culturally ignorant, because we also get some seriously oddball pigeons with strangely Indian-sounding accents. What the hell? They are the strangest characters I’ve come across in a film in ages. But seriously, there’s no koala named fuckin’ Nigel over here, let me tell you. It just doesn’t happen, and if he was meant to be London-raised, then I think that’s way too complex for what is a kids movie, not a family movie, so I’m inclined to call bullshit on that excuse. Then we get to the chameleons. Oh boy. I don’t know whether to blame Mr. Spaz or screenwriters Ed Decter, Mark Gibson & Philip Halprin (the duo behind “Snow Dogs”), and John J. Strauss, but someone here has no idea how chameleons work. They seem to be under the impression that chameleons are like ventriloquists and can project their camouflage abilities onto other animals. That’s just scientifically ricockulous and insulting to anyone with a working brain.

 

The film does have its merits, though. The animation isn’t as photorealistic as in “Rango”, but it is nonetheless extremely pretty and colourful, and somewhat textured. It’s on the level of “Over the Hedge” in that respect, perhaps. It’s a little weird to hear Kiefer Sutherland’s rather creepy voice in an animated film at first, let alone playing a benign, fatherly character, but he makes for a much more convincing lion than Liam Neeson at least. He shows his versatility in a rather gentle role. Jim Belushi is an inspired choice for a squirrel that has the hots for a giraffe, which is a funny idea. Best of all is the brilliant choice of William Shatner as the chief wildebeest. It’s only the pregnant pauses that give his casting away, but he’s surprisingly terrific here and the only thing to interest anyone over the age of 10. Unfortunately not even the Shat Man can make me forget the truly abysmal, embarrassing dancing finale that erases any cool that Kiefer Sutherland might’ve had in a single moment. Wow.

 

This is pretty subpar Disney animated stuff, and really only recommended to Shatner completists. I mean, it’s hardly the worst thing he’s ever done (‘Mr. Tambourine Man’, anyone?).

 

Nigel? NIGEL?!! Really?...

 

Rating: C