The Call Of The Wild (2020)

By: Mike Ward on Wednesday, April 01

PG Running Time: 100 mins

SHOULD I SEE IT?

YES

  • While a bit underwhelming, as far as family films go, in a COVID-19 world, The Call of the Wild is not a bad choice to sit around and watch while staying home.

  • Harrison Ford is wonderful at times and adds a sturdy presence to a movie desperately in need of one.

  • Feels like a movie 20-30 years old moments after it starts. For some, this will be appealing.

NO

  • A CGI dog is definitely a choice.

  • The movie just isn’t all that good, to be honest. The film struggles to find a flow between light-hearted family adventure to more serious drama to having a photorealistic dog interacting with human beings. Elements of this are fine, but a big letdown overall.

  • Like can I suggest a better movie? The Journey of Natty Gann, released in 1985 and free on Disney+, and a couple of bucks on most streaming and VOD platforms.


OUR REVIEW

For everyone who complains that mainstream movies, especially those geared towards families, are workshopped in the board room and directors simply check off a list of items the studio wants before finishing their film, The Call of the Wild is going to drive you crazy.

Even if you have no familiarity with Jack London’s legendary 1903 novel, you will have to have never read a story, or watched a movie in your life, to somehow not be able to guess where director Chris Sanders’ latest remake of London’s story ends up.

In what amounts to a film that feels like it was made by Disney in the 1990s, The Call of the Wild rightfully removes many of the troubling elements of London’s novel, and takes the story down a somewhat different path.

Buck is the centerpiece of the film, a giant Saint Bernard who takes a journey from beloved pet to sled-dog to a lonely man’s companion to a dog who finds kinship with a pack of timberwolves.

At times, the film delivers entertaining sequences: Buck serves an the anchor for a team of sled-dogs, steered by a couple (Omar Sy, Cara Gee) who deliver mail across Alaska. In the film’s second half, which largely revolves around the isolated John Thornton (Harrison Ford), Buck becomes a faithful, watchful friend to a man desperately in need of one.

Sanders does his dutiful tasks well enough, but the film suffers from some major hiccups. Michael Green’s screenplay is a rambling mess, unable to find a consistent tone and rhythm as Buck experiences a wide array of experiences over the film’s 100 minutes. Green adds elements to the story that make it more adventurous at times, but not necessarily better.

The necessity of a villain is a waste of everyone’s time, with Dan Stevens (“Downton Abbey”, The Guest) popping in here to chew scenery and neutered in his ability to offer anything substantive to the story. In fact, his entire storyline feels so incomplete that you cannot help but wonder if significant portions of The Call of the Wild ended up on the cutting room floor.

And then we get to Buck himself.

So…Buck is not a real dog. Not even played by a series of similar looking dogs. Instead, The Call of the Wild’s $125 million production budget is largely responsible for the CGI/motion-capture effects used on Buck, played by human actor Terry Notary and modeled after Sanders’ real-life pup, Buckley.

Notary, best that I can tell, does a fine job in the role. However, the visual effects never normalize. And Buck never feels real. Perhaps, this was a choice to enhance the adventure sequences involving sled-dog running or the belief that Buck needed to become an expressive, almost talkative companion to Thornton. But the decision simply does not work.

Ford’s performance – heartwarming, kind of wonderful at times – only can do so much when it comes to us trying to suspend our disbelief and accept Buck as something more than a creation of coding and animation.

When I saw this in theaters, prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, kids in my screening seemed to manage Buck’s presence fine though one young boy asked his mom, on the way out of the theater, why they couldn’t use real dogs. She paused, then responded by reminding him to throw away his popcorn bucket.

Yeah, I understand. I wouldn’t really have a good response to that either.

The Call of the Wild is an easy enough film to watch, but it is a bit of a headscratcher as to why it looks and feels the way it does. As an adventure, the film works alright, with some sequences fun to experience. However, the movie just feels too calculated, too artificial, and too inorganic to find a true, beating heart.

CAST & CREW

Starring: Harrison Ford, Omar Sy, Cara Gee, Dan Stevens, Bradley Whitford, Jean Louisa Kelly, Karen GIllan, Michael Horse, Terry Notary.

Director: Chris Sanders
Written by: Michael Green
Based on the novel, “The Call of the Wild” by Jack London
Release Date: February 21, 2020
20th Century Studios