The first two minutes or so of The Wild are very promising. They have a very snappy, cartoony style, culminating in a 14,000 foot wildebeest, and you think to yourself that you unfairly overlooked what's actually an entertaining cartoon comedy. But then what is revealed to be a mere opening (Kung Fu Panda style) ends and we are drawn into the movie's actual world.
If you are unfamiliar with the term "uncanny valley", it refers to creepiness of features being very realistic but noticeably off the mark. That's The Wild's look style in a nutshell. The animals look semi-realistic but the way in which they are not is very visually jarring. The character design is very unappealing all around, and this movie looked average even when it came out in 2006.
The setting might seem at first glance like a complete rip-off of Madagascar. The setting, not the storyline, centering on a lion and his friends in Central Park Zoo. The conflict here is about Samson the celebrated lion being separated from his son Larry, who runs away to the wild so he can overcome his total lack of a roar and thus live up to his father. The story about father and son is very touching and is definitely not to blame for this movie's shortcomings. Rather, how it's told is.
Going back to Madagascar again, one of the strengths of those movies is that they know which characters are golden and keep us with them. Not the case with The Wild. Larry's friends the kangaroo and hippo had potential, and so did the sports team penguins, masters in the zoo's preferred sport of curling (which the movie honestly does a good job at making look exciting). But they all vanish practically instantly when our main gang leave on their journey. Even more of a shame, the alligators (one of whom is on the poster) barely even register, let alone induce a chuckle. They just appear and then they are gone, and you could easily imagine their scene being cut. What a waste of characters with potential! The main cast really don't get a lot to do. By far the most entertaining is Nigel the koala bear, hilariously voiced by Eddie Izzard. He's fed up with his popularity as a cute and cuddly koala bear plush, and his scatterbrained nature is the driving force for what little comedy the film can muster. The giraffe does nothing but complain all the way through, I was fed up with her quite quickly. Don't even get me started on the Dutch dung beetles, which stick out from this film's look style like a sore thumb but thankfully have even less screen time than the alligators.
But what ultimately drags The Wild down is that its world is empty. Is anybody supposed to believe that New York City would ever be this empty, let alone Manhattan? They drive around, run around many streets, and there's just nobody there. Because it's nighttime? New York City is nicknamed the City that Never Sleeps, would some crowd simulations have hurt? There were lots of people in the zoo, so what's the excuse? This really kills one's believability in the film.
What is in most regards a rather tame, pedestrian film is made even worse by squandering its few gold nuggets. The alligators get no time to be developed at all, and the hilarious special agent chameleons even can't save much. The biggest shame is that the visual and storytelling grandeur of the opening sequence is never touched upon again and upstages the feature presentation considerably. If that doesn't say something about what a missed opportunity The Wild is, I don't know what does.
If you are unfamiliar with the term "uncanny valley", it refers to creepiness of features being very realistic but noticeably off the mark. That's The Wild's look style in a nutshell. The animals look semi-realistic but the way in which they are not is very visually jarring. The character design is very unappealing all around, and this movie looked average even when it came out in 2006.
The setting might seem at first glance like a complete rip-off of Madagascar. The setting, not the storyline, centering on a lion and his friends in Central Park Zoo. The conflict here is about Samson the celebrated lion being separated from his son Larry, who runs away to the wild so he can overcome his total lack of a roar and thus live up to his father. The story about father and son is very touching and is definitely not to blame for this movie's shortcomings. Rather, how it's told is.
Going back to Madagascar again, one of the strengths of those movies is that they know which characters are golden and keep us with them. Not the case with The Wild. Larry's friends the kangaroo and hippo had potential, and so did the sports team penguins, masters in the zoo's preferred sport of curling (which the movie honestly does a good job at making look exciting). But they all vanish practically instantly when our main gang leave on their journey. Even more of a shame, the alligators (one of whom is on the poster) barely even register, let alone induce a chuckle. They just appear and then they are gone, and you could easily imagine their scene being cut. What a waste of characters with potential! The main cast really don't get a lot to do. By far the most entertaining is Nigel the koala bear, hilariously voiced by Eddie Izzard. He's fed up with his popularity as a cute and cuddly koala bear plush, and his scatterbrained nature is the driving force for what little comedy the film can muster. The giraffe does nothing but complain all the way through, I was fed up with her quite quickly. Don't even get me started on the Dutch dung beetles, which stick out from this film's look style like a sore thumb but thankfully have even less screen time than the alligators.
But what ultimately drags The Wild down is that its world is empty. Is anybody supposed to believe that New York City would ever be this empty, let alone Manhattan? They drive around, run around many streets, and there's just nobody there. Because it's nighttime? New York City is nicknamed the City that Never Sleeps, would some crowd simulations have hurt? There were lots of people in the zoo, so what's the excuse? This really kills one's believability in the film.
What is in most regards a rather tame, pedestrian film is made even worse by squandering its few gold nuggets. The alligators get no time to be developed at all, and the hilarious special agent chameleons even can't save much. The biggest shame is that the visual and storytelling grandeur of the opening sequence is never touched upon again and upstages the feature presentation considerably. If that doesn't say something about what a missed opportunity The Wild is, I don't know what does.