Disney’s latest animation flick, The Wild, may look, smell and taste like last year’s Madagascar, but it’s funnier. Then again, I wasn’t that impressed by Madagascar.
The Wild tracks Samson the Lion (voiced by Kiefer Sutherland), the zoo’s big attraction, as he rushes off to Africa in pursuit of his son Ryan (Greg Cipes), who was accidentally shipped out in a cargo container.
His support staff comprises a silly anaconda, Larry (Richard Kind), a koala bear (Eddie Izzard) and a squirrel, Benny (James Belushi), who is desperately in love with another of their company, Bridget the Giraffe (Janeane Garofalo).
While Izzard manages to sneak some humour into the otherwise dour personality of Nigel the Koala, he appears to have been reined in by the sensibilities of wholesome family films.
In between the yodelling dung beetles and covert chameleons, the zoo animals encounter a herd of delusional, dancing wildebeest led by the dangerously unbalanced Kazar (William Shatner). When he’s not choreographing new routines, Kazar dreams of upending the food chain, and our New York friends turn out to be the missing link in his malevolent plan.
In the course of his adventure, Ryan learns that, contrary to his belief, his father was not brought up in the wild and is a city boy through and through, but that’s okay, he still loves him, et cetera.
Some critics fault the computer-generated animation and the lip-synching, in particular, for its excessive realism, but the consensus is that the quality animation job ranks high among this film’s attributes.
The Wild might be slightly scary for kids, like the scene in which our heroes are accosted by two crocodiles who were flushed down the toilet at a tender age. But the Bronx-accented duo quickly lighten the scene when they begin bickering over subway routes.
On the whole, The Wild is a reasonable romp over familiar territory — and it is a bit more gritty and fast-paced than Disney’s more charming, earlier movies that held together better.