Thanks Ken for the sulks on my "long-time no update"...hehehe...my apologies.
Anyway, as promised, I would do a short review on this Walt Disney animation flick; however, for those who have yet to watch, please do not proceed to read this review as it may contain spoilers and I do not want to be cursed for revealing the story and spoiling all the surprises.
So, yet another Walt Disney film; which was subject to the infamous comparison or suspiciously similarity to the Dreamworks production last year; Madagascar. I admit that the same thought crossed my mind the instant I heard or read of the gist of this animation. Somehow, I thought the filmmakers were running out of ideas and that this is just yet another copy production of the same genre until I realized it was a Walt Disney's production. Okay, so much for unfair judgement, but anyway, I kinda had the thought that Madagascar could be the one which is copying the idea from Disney; after all, Disney is not one for duplicating and yet producing the same film. How about the production release timeline, you may ask? Well, that's pretty simple to answer; since Disney is a major animation production company; there would be lots of procedures going around and also the red tapes; it's always of that nature in the industry; kinda like the semiconductor industry as well....wait, that's going too far.
So, seems like the papers confirmed my theories as well; it was reported last week or 2 weeks ago that Walt Disney already had the animation in production even way before Madagascar was produced and allegedly, Madagascar was supposed to be the clone of The Wild. Anyway, as the former was released thus pioneering the story of the same genre, The Wild was left to the unfair and biased judgement of being the pirated copy now. Well, there is no say in this since the first to be out is Dreamworks...too bad for Disney then.
Not to be biased; but I didn't quite like Madagascar then; I found it a little boring. As for The Wild, ahaaa....what should I say...it may not be the best but I'd say that it slightly surpassed Madagascar, say biased if you want but Disney always has this cliche on captivating its audience and also the witty and catchy lines. Also, you could see that the animation was very well done and details were took into consideration. Look at the fur on Nigel the Koala and also on Samson the Lion.
Into the story; it's a pretty generic and simple storyline about these animals which were bred in the New York City Zoo and were trained to perform and to entertain the visitors. The zoo was pretty much alive at night with the partying by the animals...that's so Disney-like :)
So, the herd was led by the mighty Samson the Lion and his clique includes Bridget the giraffe, Benny the squirrel(Samson's best friend), Nigel the Koala, Larry the snake and not forgetting Samson's sulky son, Ryan the lion cub.
Samson was admired by most of the animals in the zoo due to the adventures in the wild he has had in the past which he told to them. However, he was not all that mighty as unknown to the others, all those stories were made up and the single soul who knows his true self and was sworn to secrecy was his best friend; Benny the squirrel. Now, you may think, what's with this Lion being best friends with a squirrel....hahaha...that's not all, be prepared to even watch Ryan the cub being friends with kangaroos and running away from other animals...and the most absurd and outworldly, a squirrel in love with a giraffe; who's like 3 to 4 times his height? Hahaha....well, what else can you expect; this is after all a Disney flick...if this is based on reality, would you see a lion, giraffe, koala, snake and a squirrel grouped together...c'mon, these are preys and predators in nature, my guess is in less than a second, the koala and squirrel are probably gone:p
Alright, so Samson was well-known for his roar which he was trying to teach his little cub of a son, Ryan who was good for nothing but climbing up to a tree and sulk whenever he hears something he doesn't like. In truth, Ryan was inferior to the status his mighty dad had and was envious of all the adventures his dad had gone through while he can never roar and the loudest he has ever done is mew like a cat. Samson was pretty cool about it but motivated his son to do better but Ryan was often in tears and runs off whenever Samson tried to tell him about it. I think Samson was not the unreasonable dad here; Ryan was the one who could never bring himself to hear the truth and often resort to sulking. He's always thinking of running away from the zoo in those green boxes he had so often heard the zoo keeper mentioned.
So, on one of those nights, after the zoo closed, Samson went for his tortoise game; some kinda animal hockey; only brutally and cruelly using the tortoises as the catch. There were those arrogant penguins who as Benny called them "birds that cannot fly" who were fighting against Samson's team. Hahaha....and Bridget was the striker with Larry as the flexible hockey stick.
Anyway, to cut the long story short, Ryan caused a stampede (not directly his fault) but Samson finally reprimanded his son and that made the sulky Ryan to run away and climbed into one of those green boxes. Actually he only intended to stay there for the night but ironically, they shipped those boxes off; intended for the African zoo the next morning.
Our poor Ryan whined and his howls were heard by good old daddy Samson who then launched into a frenzy search for his beloved son....as the media reported, launched into the Finding Nemo storyline mode.His faithful friends of course, would not let him go alone and trailed along. Samson was reluctant to bring them along but they assured that they will be safe in his company. The truth is, Samson himself is inexperienced and is not assured he will be able to protect them. So, along the way, they ran into the aligators under the drain, some animals which claimed they want revenge for often being preyed by the lions and now they want to elevate their wild status to be above the lions; and in doing so, they need to devour lions...
Watch out for the Bollywood pigeons, the arrogant penguins, the hippo mother and the baby hippo and also the camouflaging cameleons.
It was quite an entertaining watch with the accent these animals portrayed as those spoilt and overly well-bred animals in the city. Furthermore, there's also the toy koala of Nigel whom he hates and also the scene of where Nigel was worshipped as a God and he had to decide between eating his friends and staying as the God of the pack.
However, in an overview, as a normal animation, it can be entertaining for the kids and family. Being Disney, they always insert the moral values now and then.
For a Disney flick, hmmmm, I'd say it was a little disappointing.
Anyway, I've tried my best not to reveal too much about the plot and only dwell on the surface of the story and also the characters in general.
The ball is in your court....the Disney fan has spoken, have fun if you watch it...do not be subject to any reviews, watch it with an open mind :)
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