Film Review - The Wild

The Wild Digs A Bit Shallow
By: Rianne Hill Soriano

Directed by: Steve 'Spaz' Williams


‘The Wild’ is a pastiche of so many other animated kid flicks about father issues, relationships, discrimination and acceptance. With its plot being a broad combination of’ Madagascar,’ ‘Finding Nemo,’ ‘Lion King’ and some other children’s animation films, it sarcastically becomes ‘Finding the King in Madagascar.’ But giving it the benefit of the doubt, could it be possible that this film started production ahead of its Dreamworks counterpart ‘Madagascar’? I have been trying to research on this but I haven’t found enough information to confirm these thoughts. But the issue here remains the same: how storylines can be stolen by a number of ants or giants, may it be in the Hollywood or the Pinoy setting. It happens really. It is rampant, that I am absolutely sure of… Talk about intellectually property rights and competition.

Without thinking about its resemblance with ‘Madagascar,’ ‘The Wild’ still comes up with yawns than roars. This latest CGI effort from Disney lacks distinctive personality and humor. The jokes often miss the punchlines. The characters are not genuinely funny except for Nigel and his stuff toy counterpart. Its slapstick, straining, half-baked zoo animal story could have been finalized in a much better way.

Technically, the effects are okay. The heaps of bold and psychedelic colors and the flair for absurd visuals played around a naturalistic animation are fine to watch courtesy of its debuting director, animation whiz Spaz Williams. But while the visual details are convincing as compared to a number of CG kid flicks out there, the characters still lack the personality and the heart as those of ‘Lion King’ and ‘Finding Nemo.’ The story is so dull and underdeveloped. It looks more like a draft than a final screenplay.

Kiefer Sutherland (Samson) has convincingly low tones to portray a zoo-grown lion father. But the supporting characters including Jim Belushi (Benny), Janeane Garofalo (Bridget), Richard Kind (Larry), William Shatner (Kazar) and Greg Cipes (Ryan) seem to lack more depth especially their characters are not well-developed and effectively treated in the first place. Eddie Izzard’s character (Nigel) is the funniest – thanks to the support of the Koala stuff toy character. However, Nigel is quite reminiscent of the ‘Fire King’ in ‘Ice Age 2: The Meltdown’ – which adds to the frustration of it being associated with so many other kid flicks.

There’s nothing really wild about ‘The Wild.’ Its entertaining enough animation surfaces but this is not enough to help it ‘dig deep’ into the hearts of the viewers. It’s actually too tamed for the roar. The pixel, the celluloid, the story and the characters should always work together. With Pixar now effectively partnered with Disney, let this serve as a hope for them to come up with better films soon. May their upcoming pictures be not as bland as ‘The Wild.’