PLOT: When his cub is accidentally shipped to Africa, a lion and his friends from a New York zoo -- all born in captivity -- make their way to the dark continent to save him.
Call it Finding Simba or Not Without My Cub or Madigascar 2.0. Disney's flashy, unoriginal CG kidflick The Wild invites a plethora of high-concept shorthand.
But first, what is with Disney's fixation on "father issues? (The Lion King, Finding Nemo, Chicken Little, etc.).
I mean, this is a company whose corporate philosophy was once spelled out by its ex-head of animation, who said, "If you can't come in on Saturday, don't bother coming in on Sunday." And the message in their films is that fathers should spend more time with their kids? Sorry, just venting.
A pastiche of so many other CG movies you've taken your kids to, you might forget it in a week, The Wild combines almost the exact plot of Madagascar (pampered zoo animals escape from Central Park's New York Zoo and end up in scary old Africa) with a reverse on Finding Nemo (father and animal friends leave the safety of captivity to get his lost child back).
Like other kidflicks, it papers over shortcomings with a barrage of colourful FX and wisecracks -- many of the latter being quite funny (a homeless koala says to a hoser Canada goose, "So, I understand they have lax immigration laws in Canada"), and many being adult double entendres (a female giraffe says, "Stop looking at my spots, my eyes are up here").
As for the flash, that much is in sure hands. The Wild is the directing debut of Toronto animation whiz Steve "Spaz" Williams, and his movie matches or exceeds the CG kidflicks out there. Just watch what his animators do with a pair of secret-agent chameleons with apparent psychedelic powers -- a scene that marries modern tech with Bugs Bunny sensibility.
The hero of The Wild is Samson (Kiefer Sutherland) a zoo attraction with a public shame (his son can't roar) and a private one (he was born in captivity). The Lion King of the zoo, he rules a kingdom of well-behaved animals who don't eat other, and love each other in ways that might make Western MPs squirm -- his best friend, a squirrel named Benny (Jim Belushi), is romantically attracted to a giraffe named Bridget (Janeane Garofalo), although to be fair, it is a hetero relationship.
It's an idyllic life, until young Ryan (Greg Cipes) accidentally ends up in a crate designed for reintroducing animals into the wilds of Africa. And before you can say "roar," Samson, Benny, Bridget, a koala named Nigel (Eddie Izzard, channeling Dudley Moore) and a snake named Larry (Richard Kind) are on an expedition to the dark continent.
En route, they evade ghetto-thug sewer gators, commandeer a tug boat with an apparent million-gallon gas tank, and intrude on the plans of a megalomaniac wildebeest (William Shatner) to lead a cult of predatory ungulates. (And frankly, if anybody was ever born to play a megalomaniacal wildebeest, it's William Shatner).
Cue the interspecies group hug.
BOTTOM LINE: Finding Nemo in reverse. There's nothing plotwise here any nine-year-old hasn't seen already -- up to and including the "father issues" that seem to motivate every Disney animated movie since Lion King. But in his directing debut, animator Spaz Williams does show a flair for absurd visuals and slapstick ("turtle curling," psychedelic chameleons). It all flies by quickly for the short-attention-span crowd.
(This film is rated G)
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