Rated R for non-stop language, drug use, crude and sexual humor.
87 Minutes
Directed By: Fred Wolf
Written By: Fred Wolf and Peter Gaulke
Bears are a proud people, although they’re not people per-say. They’re animals. Bears derive their name from a football team in Chicago. Bears have been known to attack man, although the fact is that fewer people have been killed by bears than in all of World World I and World War II combined. Brown bears bloves fishing. Brown… Brown bears bloves… God, why am I having so much trouble saying brown… -Peter (doing voice over)
Synopsis
Peter Gaulkes father passes away and leaves his legacy the wilderness show, “Strange WIlderness” to his son to host. His son, who is an under-achieving pot-head, really admired his father, and decides to respect his wishes and continue the show. Unfortunately Peter falls short in every capacity with his obvious ignorance to animals and his admiration for partying. The two intermingle too often and the show is endanger of being canceled. To save it, they go on the greatest wilderness adventure of all time, in search of BIG FOOT.
Review
With a hilarious cast and Happy Madison productions backing it up Strange Wilderness appeared to be a movie that would be overflowing with the funny. It wasn’t. In fact it was desperately boring, and now I feel lesser for having wasted my time viewing it. Steve Zahn has a great knack for playing a stoner with a dry sense of humor, which suited him fine for this role, but as the lead character reminiscing about this tale, he comes off as too stupid to put a sensible thought together. His outrageous idea’s and behavior in regards to the Wilderness show he hosts goes past being over the top and funny and into the realm of too offensive to even have one blink of sanity. To believe the preposterous story isn’t even possible. Even in the universe created by the director and writer.
The shift from the van to the jungle was awkward and didn’t change over well. Though the scene with Robert Patrick offered a few laughs, the following scenes were again not in sync with the rest of the storytelling and the jokes fell dry. By the time their ultimate goal of big foot is reached I admit the response and attempted cover up of failed mission had me in hysterics, but only that and a few more small chuckles were all Strange Wilderness had to offer. It never felt like a complete movie and the characters weren’t executed well by their actors. It seems as though mediocre work was done by a mediocre script. By the look of things the fictional characters from the movie were the ones who were responcible for the editing in the cutting room.
Best part of the movie: Steve Zahns voice overs were hysterical.
Cast
- Steve Zahn as Peter
- Allen Covert as Fred
- Jonah Hill as Cooker
- Kevin Heffernan as Whitaker
- Ashley Scott as Cheryl
- Peter Dante as Danny Guiterrez
- Harry Hamlin as Sky Pierson
- Robert Patrick as Guy Hayden
- Blake Clark as Dick
As much as I enjoy many of these comedic actors I have to say a large portion of the ball was dropped by them. There is no doubt the direction and the script left an inept story to tell with jokes that never really had a chance of making anyone laugh. Jonah Hills character was just annoying, not really funny. His accent was awkward and his addition to the group of misfits made even less sense. All of the group was full of weirdo’s who probably would even be rejected from the strange creatures of the wilderness, and having two of those character may have worked, but since everyone was loony there was no one to ground the story of the others making them all seem completely bonkers and not necessarily in a fun way.
Ratings and Suggestions
The chaos of this story left the viewer feeling blind and bored. There was so little substance and too much nonsense to really enjoy any of the funnier moments. Strange Wilderness is an easy movie to forget about. While your watching it. There may be a few moments that will appeal to someones twisted humor, as it occasionally startled my own, but the movie on a whole is just one bad joke, that I’m surprised even made it to the big screen. Strange Wilderness earns one and a half stars of four stars because it did randomly offer a chuckle or two.
WHY does the reviewer not show a name? The review sounds realistic for much of what is made today. One wonders WHY.
Try reading the Finders Fee and tell about its reality except for its setting in a Galaxy we know not yet. Tell us what it shows and how you see it?
What do we know about children? How will total power not corrupt a boy and why not? How do children deal with parents who do not know?
Finland has problems understanding murder by an amok runner.