Review of The Call of the Wild (2020) by Theredsky — 05 Mar 2020

The Call of the Wild is a strange film. All the pieces for a great movie are here but the studio or Director choose to be lazy instead of taking advantage of the opportunity. If you have seen any clips or trailers from this film then you know that they animated a dog instead of using a real dog.

It’s not just the dog they created in CGI. They did it to every single animal. It’s incredibly lazy and distracting. It’s not that the animals look bad, it's just uncanny. It looks like a dog and acts like a dog but it doesn’t feel like a dog.

At certain points within the film, the dog will make “human expressions”. It feels out of place. The movie feels like it honestly should have been animated. I would have really liked this movie if it had been animated but I wouldn’t have loved it.

The film still has issues in the character and editing category. Most of the characters in the film were pretty good such as Harrison Ford and Omar Sy but Dan Stevens' performance and character/villain was pretty awful.

His performance was so over the top that it was distracting. I normally like over the top performances but this wasn’t the kind of over the top I like. His character was pretty awful too. He is supposed to be the main antagonist but he is only in the film for about 5 minutes.

He feels more like a plot device than a character. While Steven’s character is pretty bad, Ford and Sy’s characters were pretty good. Both of their characters were fleshed out and were very likeable.

Their performances added to this likeability. Harrison Ford did a great job. I honestly felt that this is one of his better performances in a long time. He brought a lot of depth and vulnerability to his performance and made his character relatable and interesting.

Omar Sy did a pretty good job. His performance wasn’t on the same level as Ford’s but he still was enjoyable to see on screen. The plot of the film and its sequence of events was surprisingly really well done and emotional.

The film is fast paced all the way through and the film is able to successfully deliver emotional punches with the human characters but not for the CGI animals. The only issue I took with the structure and sequence of events was how the second half of the film was much better than the first half.

The first half of the film has good performances but the plot hasn’t fully kicked into gear yet so it’s not as interesting. The second half is when Harrison Ford comes in and the film becomes much much better.

Most of the film’s technical aspects were pretty good too. The cinematography was pretty good for the most part but did have some beautiful establishing shots. The score by John Powell was great and helped add some emotion to certain scenes but the editing wasn’t that great.

It wasn’t terrible but it was noticeably awkward when it transitioned to other scenes. Overall, The Call of the Wild has all the pieces to make a good film but decides to take the lazy route and animate all the animals muting some of the emotional weight.