Review of Strange Wilderness (2008) by Matt H — 01 Nov 2008

This is one of the weirdest movies I have come across in some time. For starters, the plot revolves around a nature show crew that travels to Ecuador in hunt of Bigfoot to save their show. Exactly.

I gotta give it to them, not many comedies are centered on a wildlife show. Original approach at least. The humor is often crude and way too infantile, but the bright spots... well, they are pure gold. All the nature show footage is laugh-out-loud material, because of the intentional rip-off look and crazy voice-over. I mean, these guys don't know shit about nature, and that is the point.

There are some other brilliant bits, like the time one of the crew members gets eaten by piranhas, and in the next shot the others are eating some fish in a frenzy by a camp fire and yelling things like "how does it feel to get eaten, you fish fucker!" That kind of shit is funny to me.

Some scenes, however, are painful. I will mention the turkey scene but I will not go into it any further. Justin Long is pretty damn funny at times, as the stoner dude. Stoner dudes are seen in too many comedies, but Long manages to make it fresh somehow.

Strange wilderness is a very strange movie. It is more bad than good. The humor is often equally strange and the dialogue oftentimes makes no sense. But, I still got some of the best laughs in a while (I would say in a long time, but I just saw Tropic Thunder, which kills) out of this odd little film.

I will leave you with a quote from their wildlife show's shark episode: "Today we take a closer look at these mysterious creatures that should be named assholes of the sea.".