The Wild Life Review

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by BlazeHeartPanther

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Oh my god, this review (plus my next one) was soooo long overdue, better do it now before I forget. Well, I went and saw this with a couple of my theater buddys back in September and let me tell you......it wasn't good, it was kind of bad, and I'm gonna explain why

Story: Basically, the story is of Robinson Crusoe who gets stranded on a deserted island with a bunch of animals and tries to get along with them while living on the island and these two cats who were dead set on getting Crusoe's dog become the enemy of him and the other animals. The problem with this is they don't do more then just that. I mean, the story is told by the Parrot of this movie, but that's the only different thing about it. they just learn to live together while making a shelter and then have a fight with the cats near the end, and speaking of end, it felt kind of unnecessary cause it was basically what the movie started on and doesn't really have any relevance to what happened in the long run. Plus, not one of these moments in the story really stand out on their own as memorable. I mean, they try to make a relationship between the parrot and Crusoe, but it doesn't have that big of an impact after a certain character gets killed It's nothing more then a hodgepodge of the animals doing things along with Crusoe trying to get along with them and pointless 3-D. Yea, this movie has parts that are in 3-D, and we never served 3-D glasses for it. WHERES THE FUCKING LOGIC TO THAT?!!!

Characters: Ok, lets see, we have Robinson Crusoe (Yuri Lowenthal, Sasuke from Naruto, Ben Tennison) who is a washed up man who doesn't handle the sea very well, Mak (David Howard Thornton, the Joker in NightWing: Escalation) is the main animal character who develops a fascination over Robinson, Kiki (Lindsey Torrance, aka Marieve Herington, Lynn from the Fist of the North Star series and Pearlie from Pearlie) is a tropical bird who has adistrust for Crusoe, Epi (Sandy Fox, Ground Defense Force! Moa-Chan) is some kind of hedgehog thing that is nothing more then a high pitched cute magnet, Scrubby (Joey Camen, McGruff the Crime Dog) is the typical "I'm blind and facing the wrong way" oldie stereotype, Pango (Jeff Doucette, Father Crowly in Desperate Housewives) is an Australian speaking Pangolin, and Tapir Rosie (Laila Berzins, Medusa in Heroes of NewEarth) is an African sounding Tapir who has sass. Wait a minute, I just figured out this films problem. THEIRS TOO MANY GOD-DAMN CHARACTERS. I mean yea, a tyical movie has this many characters as supporting perhaps, but this film tries to make them all indevidiaul identities and fails. They come off more a stereotypical troupes in these kind of kids flicks only for laughs rather then character development. The only one who has a sense of character is Mak who forms a sort of bond with Robinson Crusoe when they meet and connect and Kiki does not want to get involved with Crusoe and she even has a scene where she tries to get them out of it and they don't build on it. While I do like some of the characters like Epi and Kiki, they don't do anything important with them and they are nothing more then overused tropes. Plus, one of the reasons these characters fail so badly is the voice acting. dear lord these voices sound straight out of cartoon on Saturday mornings, which is no surprise since this voice cast specializes in voicing animated characters. it can work for some characters, but for others, it just feels so out of place and very cheesy

Animators: If their is one thing I can give this film credit for, it's for its animation. This film doesn't look all that bad for a foreign animation. It is a French-Belgian animation that does look pretty similar to an American made film. The environments look good, the character designs, while basic, are pretty nicely rendered and detailed, and the water is pretty good looking too. Even the way characters behave are pretty realistic of their real-life counterparts. but that's where the praise stops. The animation is only good. their is nothing to spectacular about it. I'd say this film looks good for maybe 2009-2008.

Score: Oh dear, this one is a toughie because all I can say about the music in this movie is pretty bland to uninspired. Their are moments where the film score fits ok, but their isn't much oomph to the music, and at times when a score is demanded, the music doesn't play especially during the cat-chase scene in the middle of the movie where the score literally just stops. It's like the conductor fell asleep trying to make music. This is very unacceptable since Ramin Djawadi (Warcraft movie) has worked with some of the finniest conductors in Hollywood on some of the most iconic film scores like Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, Iron Man, Blade Trinity, Batman Begins, Pacific Rim. Their is no excuse for this rubbish. even Norm of the North had better conducted music than this. I can't believe I just said that. excuse me while I go shoot myself now. in the end, the film score is a show of "needs improvement"

Overal, I give this film a 4 out of 10. aside from its good animation, its got poor writing, poor characters, awkward voice acting and a bad sense of film score

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