In the interest of getting “hard” copies of my work under one roof, I plan to spend the next few weeks posting the entire archive of my film journalism here on ScullyVision. With due respect to the many publications I’ve written for, the internet remains quite temporary, and I’d hate to see any of my work disappear for digital reasons. As such, this gargantuan project must begin! I don’t want to do it. I hate doing it. But it needs to be done. Please note that my opinions, like everyone’s, have changed a LOT since I started, so many of these reviews will only represent a snapshot in time. Objectivity has absolutely no place in film criticism, at least not how I do it.
Originally posted on Cinema76.
The Call of the Wild marks the sixth film adaptation of Jack London’s classic novel. Seventh, if you count the animated flick What a Nightmare, Charlie Brown!. Given the severe departure from the source material evident in the latest version of the tale, we might as well include Snoopy’s take because screw it, nothing matters anymore. Reduced to a skeletal version of the novel’s plot, and bubbling over with utterly baffling CGI, this latest version is a total snooze. Come for the committed Harrison Ford performance, stay for the…ya know what? Don’t stay. Don’t even come. Just sit. Roll over. Play dead.
The Call of the Wild follows the adventures of Buck, a computer generated dog with the eyes of a human that we are told is meant to be a real dog. For those who don’t know what a dog is, a dog is a loyal, generally friendly animal that has made appearances in many movies over the years, mostly on account of how incredibly easy it is to train a dog to be in movies. Despite the film’s assurances, Buck is not a dog, because Buck is actually just a collection of ones and zeros arranged to look somewhat like a dog, and to move the way someone who has never seen a dog, but who has been told about dogs, might imagine.
Buck’s story begins at home. His owner is a well-off man (Bradley Whitford, barely used), who is preparing a feast for a large group of important guests. Since Buck is a dog (so I’m told) he can’t resist but to make a mess of the meal. As punishment, Buck is kept outside for the night, where he is promptly dog-napped by men who plan to sell him prospectors in the Yukon. This happens, and soon Buck finds himself leading a dog sled, delivering mail to all of the workers. Some time after that, when the movie is half over, Harrison Ford shows up and takes Buck on an adventure as well. Harrison Ford’s son is dead, which is important for some reason. Drama comes in the form of a jealous fellow prospector (Dan Stevens, barely used), who’s got it out for Harrison Ford. With him is a lady (Karen Gillan, not at all used), and some other guy (some other guy).
The decision to make all of the animals CGI, and then have them walk such a bizarre anthropomorphic line is emblematic of everything I hate about the Disneyfication of Hollywood. No, this isn’t a Disney film outright, but it exhibits the same careless attitude towards imagination, where a movie feels more like a tech showcase than creative enterprise (I’m looking at you, new Lion King). In this one, the dogs are meant to be real-world animals, but they all have cartoonish physicalities and faces that emote in ways which animals can’t. At every moment, I fully expected them to break out into song, and had they done so, it might have begun to make sense. Instead, we see real humans interacting with clearly intangible dogs (between this and Cats, I’m amazed that realistic collars seem to be an impossible hurdle for digital effects artists to clear), doing things that, given the clash of visuals, have no stakes. The partially CG rendered vistas don’t help on that front either.
Really, this should have been a fully animated movie. To mix live-action with CGI in this way doesn’t quite work because the style of animation doesn’t match the reality it’s supposed to inhabit. If this went full “kids movie” (and really, with all of the potentially upsetting material having been excised from the narrative, it might as well have), it could have worked. It probably couldn’t have been titled The Call of the Wild, but it could have worked. Perhaps they could’ve called it Snow Dogs.
OR THEY COULD HAVE JUST TRAINED A REAL DOG TO BE IN THE MOVIE.
Maybe I’m not the right crowd for this one. Maybe I’m being too cynical toward a property that I never cared much about to begin with. Or maybe I’m just tired of toothless cash grabs coasting on pre-existing IP, looking to find a viable shell into which well-financed, completely misapplied visual effects can be puked. All I know is that the animal stars of the movie made me feel gross, while the movie itself bored me to tears. I’m not kidding when I say that the movie doesn’t really get going until just before it ends. And at present, I still can’t tell you what it’s about.
But hey, as I said before, Harrison Ford is really really good in it. He should’ve played the dog.
Call of the Wild opens in Philly theaters today.
