Walt Disney presents the tale of a lion cub who lives in the New York zoo but yearns to return to the Wild.
Samson (Keifer Sutherland) the lion is the king of…the New York Zoo. He does tell his cub Ryan (Greg Cipes) tales of when he was in the Wild. Ryan thinks that the grass is greener in the Wild than it is in the New York Zoo. However, Samson is fine where he’s at. Ryan decides to sneak into some green shipping crates that are headed back to the Wilds.
So it’s up to Samson and his crew of bumbling buddies to find their way to the Wilds and save Ryan. Samson is accompanied by his best friend Benny the squirrel (James Belushi), Bridget the giraffe (Janeane Garofalo), Nigel the koala (Eddie Izzard), and Larry the anaconda (Richard Kind). Ryan is always just barely within their grasp. He makes it to the Wild and finds that it’s not the wonderful place that he thought it to be. Samson and the gang arrive soon after in a commandeered tug boat (which seems to have an everlasting fuel supply to make it to Africa or thereabouts).
They don’t find Ryan but they find Kazar the wildebeest (William Shatner) and his assistant Blag (Patrick Warburton). Seems that Kazar has had word from on high (in the form of a doll that looks like Nigel that fell from the sky) that to ascent all he has to do it reverse the food chain. In other words, the vegetarian wildebeest has to become a carnivore and eat the top of the food chain – a lion. Kazar has his sights set on Samson and Ryan.
The Wild is a bit of a mess in my opinion. It seems rather disjointed and let’s not forget that it bore a resemblance to Madagascar. Although the vocal casting is not terrible, the problem is that we really don’t connect with any of the characters. The narrative seems disjointed. About the time the animals make it to New York, they’ve left for their long sea voyage on a stolen tug boat (which I doubt could make the sea voyage in the first place – I know it’s a cartoon).
Samson and Ryan in the New York zoo
It seemed to me that they should’ve focused on one part instead of trying to fit so much into the film. For whatever reason, I was interested in the wildebeest’s deranged scheme to reverse the food chain. The way it is now it seems like a sort of afterthought. I thought that the CGI was good, but when the characters don’t have heart what difference does that make? An easy knock would be to remind you that the film is directed by Steve “Spaz” Williams - that might explain the disjointed nature of the film.
The Wild is presented in anamorphic widescreen (1.78:1) and enhanced for 16x9 televisions. Special features are rather slack and feel like they’re a portion of a bigger special edition. I wonder if there would’ve been more if the movie was more of a hit at the box office.
The disc features Disney’s Fastplay system (unless you select the main menu the movie and video based special features will play automatically). First up is 4 minutes of deleted scenes (in mostly unfinished form) with optional commentary by director Steve “Spaz” Williams and producer Clint Goldman.
Next is the 3 minute “Real Wild Child” music video by Everlife. Followed by the 3 minute “Eddie Izzard Unleashed” which show Izzard in the recording studio. Finally there’s the 2 minute “Meet Colin: the Rock Hyrax” which features Colin Cunningham who voices the little beastie.
The gang goes in search of Ryan in the wild
The Wild is not the best animated film that I’ve seen and I’d caution adults not to watch it. However, my kids have watched it three times (and counting) and don’t seem to have the complaints that I did. I’d recommend that you give it a rental for the kiddies if they seem interested.
The Wild is now available at Amazon and AmazonUK . Visit the DVD database for more information.
Your Talkback on this Story