Review of Fierce Creatures (1997) by Danielle S — 29 Aug 2008

In Fierce Creatures, a smalltown zoo is taken over by a megacoporation. In order to keep the zoo from being put out of business, the zoo decides to have only fierce creatures in order to draw a crowd. The story gets murkier from here, involving rebellious zookeepers including Michael Palin, a plan to sell the zoo, and lots of sex jokes, but basically the movie floats, thanks to liberal doses of humor from the principals. Kevin Kline's appearance of both Randy and Vince McCain is excellent. The name Octopus inc. is a reference to the big multinational corporations, only interested in making money. John Cleese, in the film mistakenly accused of having sex with the zoo animals, plays a rather good underdog character.

Vince McCain: "Hey, hey, hey, hey. Were you going to use that for target practice?

Rollo Lee: Oh, no. Ha.

Vince McCain: Or, uh, one of your orgies?

[long pause].

Rollo Lee: Orgies?

Vince McCain: Yeah. I'm onto you. You were going to put that somewhere. You're sick.".

Fierce Creatures generally comes off as an agreeable, sporadically hilarious farce that benefits substantially from Cleese, Curtis, and Kline's incredibly strong work.