Call Of The Wild is a CGI-live action hybrid adventure movie which is directed by Chris Sanders. Sander mostly dabbles in Animation in his directing work and has directed films such as Dreamworks’ How to train your dragon and Disney’s Lilo and Stitch whilst also providing the voice for Stitch.
The Plot is very simple. Buck is a huge dog that is owned by a wealthy family and is known to be mischievous. Buck one day ruins a party the family is throwing by devouring the buffet and is shut outside. This is when the story begins when Buck is kidnapped and a series of both fortunate and unfortunate events unfold which sends Buck on a journey of self discovery and him battling for survival in a feral environment that wasn’t made for well groomed house pets.
So apparently this movie is based on a book. A book of which i have never heard of so i went in to this movie totally blind all i knew was it had Harrison Ford in the cast and involved dogs so that was enough for me to dish out a fiver for a ticket and smuggle in cheap snacks from the Asda and buckle down to what i would think would be just a nice, fun time at the cinema. I was not however expecting to be crying rivers for the majority of its run time. Every time something happened that started the waterworks I’d eventually calm myself down and BOOM! The film would then open the gates to my floods of tears and again I would sob.
I’m not sure whether it’s because I have a soft spot for dogs and animals in films or that the film is actually an emotional rollercoaster or a third option i’m just a soppy bloke that is easily made to cry. (My girlfriend would tell which one is true).
Either way, whatever the reason is, I thoroughly enjoyed Call of the wild. Its story was heartwarming its cast were brilliant and the CGI wasn’t terrible, Most of the time the Buck the dog was convincing and didn’t take me out of the film and i could believe that Buck was real however on occasion Buck would make an expression a dogs face would not be able to make and gave a cartoony finish to it sometimes but overall i didn’t mind it but i just wish they would have either gone full photorealism or cartoon-esque just so there wasn’t this clash.
I found that Chris Sanders although specializing in animation manages to direct a pretty spectacular looking film here and you can see a lot of care went into the visual aspect of this movie and it shows. The Landscapes throughout the film ooze with small details that makes them feel real, the mountains tower over the people of small villages giving a sense of how small we actually are compared to this world and the world as whole just feels spectacular and something out of a fairy tales but these places actually exist and the film handles its plethora of environments perfectly.
The film itself isn’t without its flaws though a lot of the flaws come from the story. The world is a big big place and there are way too many coincidences in this movie for a film that tries to tie itself in reality in most ways. Buck meets someone, then meets them months or years later miles away from where he originally was and i understand the film tries to foreshadow relationships or jokes or plot threads throughout but i just thought there were one or two too many happenstances for the plot to be well written or greatly written. However i have not read the book and do not know how faithful this is so we may have the book to blame for that.Also a lackluster final almost derailed the climax of the film as it built up to a confrontation that ended quicker than it started and relied too much on coincidences again to make it work.
Final Score.
Title:Good
Call of the Wild is a great watch at the cinema and is definitely worth the money at the writing of this review the film is to be seen as a box office bomb and its a title i don’t think it deserves. If you have a little bit of spare cash knocking around go give it a watch.
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