Review: The Wild

The animal kingdom is making a comeback. Not in the real world, unfortunately, more species are being endangered and extinguished every day. But on our movie screens, animalia has never been stronger. With films like The Wild, Over the Hedge, Barnyard, Ice Age 2, Open Season, Flushed Away and The Ant Bully coming out this year, kids won't be able to get away from the cute and cuddly creatures, other than Pixar's Cars. With so many creature features, there's bound to be some overlap, plotwise, but the competition between Disney and DreamWorks is getting a bit ridiculous. First, there was the year of A Bug's Life and Antz. Then, there was Finding Nemo and Shark Tale. Then there was Madagascar, and now there's The Wild. Now, of course, there are some subtle differences, but the fact that there are two CGI movies about a group of animals from a New York zoo who run loose in the city, only to wind up on a boat to Africa to have crazy adventures should be unacceptable to people. The main character in each one is a lion, with a giraffe friend. Okay, fine, I can accept all that, but when I hear that Warner Bros. is in the process of creating The Zoo, about animals with a New York attitude, I start to twitch. Are there no more ideas left in Hollywood, that our animated movies have to constantly cannibalize each other for ideas. It's really unbelievable that we put up with it. But, having said my piece about that, let's talk The Wild.

The story at the heart of the movie is more compelling than that of Madagascar. Samson (Kiefer Sutherland), the big lion on campus at the Central Park Zoo, is raising his son, Ryan (Greg Cipes) in captivity, while regaling him with stories of his life in the wild. His friends from his turtle curling team include Benny (Jim Belushi), a slick squirrel with a misguided crush on...; Bridget (Janeane Garofalo), a giraffe whose only purpose seems to be to act as a means of conveyance for...; Larry (Richard Kind), a boa constrictor who appears to have constricted blood from reaching his own brain; and Nigel (Eddie Izzard), a koala from the London Zoo, with the hooligan attitude to match. One lovely touch for us Canadians, the commentator for the turtle curling is a penguin voiced by Don Cherry. I wonder if the folks at C.O.R.E., the Toronto studio that produced the animation, insisted upon it. So, Ryan, upset that he isn't the lion that his father is, hides within a crate heading for the wild. Upon finding out, Samson puts together a rescue mission that leads them through the sewers to the port, where they commandeer a vessel and follow the container ship to an African island (whether or not it is Madagascar is unconfirmed). They discover the ship is preparing to rescue the animals of the island from a smoking volcano. But Ryan escaped into the jungle, and Samson must rely on his instincts to find him, but does he still have them? Did he ever? Meanwhile, Nigel (the source of comic relief) finds himself the object of worship among a misguided group of wildebeests determined to hoof their way to the top of the food chain.

If it helps you, you can think of The Wild as Madagascar meets Finding Nemo meets The Lion King, but that's a generalization. This movie has it's own style, pacing and tone. Obviously, there are times where you will notice things lifted from other movies, but consider that this movie idea was picthed to Disney studio heads nine years ago. So that may explain the similarities between it and others, but make no mistake that this movie stands fine on it's own. The kids will enjoy it, and adults won't get bored. That will happen sometime during the next movie.

∆∆∆ of 5