THE CALL OF THE WILD (2020) MOVIE NEWS & REVIEW

the CALL OF THE WILD(2020) movie

Genre              |   Adventure

Classification   |   PG

Running time   |   120 minutes

Released         |   20 February  2020

cast

Harrison Ford ... John Thornton
Karen Gillan ... Mercedes
Cara Gee
Jean Louisa Kelly ... Katie Miller
Dan Stevens ... Hal
Bradley Whitford ... Judge Miller
Wes Brown ... Mountie
Omar Sy
​Terry Notary ... Buck

director

Chris Sanders

writer

​Michael Green ... (screenplay by)
 
Jack London ... (based on the novel by)

cinematographer

​Janusz Kaminski

music

​​John Powell

film editor

​David Heinz
William Hoy

---

box office result

Worldwide               $200 million

Australia                 $? million

North America        $? million

---

movie minutiae

The role of John Thornton, here played by Harrison Ford, was previously portrayed by Rutger Hauer in the 1997 TV adaptation of the story. Both actors famously appeared opposite each other as enemies in BLADE RUNNER (1982).

​The fully CGI model of Buck is a digital scan of a real dog, adopted during production from the Emporia, Kansas animal shelter by director Chris Sanders' wife, Jessica Steele-Sanders. Coincidentally, the dog's name was "Buckley." Buckley is the same kind of mixed breed as Buck is described in Jack London's book: a cross between a St. Bernard and a Scotch collie-type dog (a medium-sized herding dog, similar to a border collie or Australian shepherd). When Jessica Steele-Sanders adopted Buckley as a companion for the Sanders' other dog, Brody, the CG model for Buck at that time was loosely based on a Bernese mountain dog -- however, when the producers saw Buckley and learned that he was the same sort of mixed breed as the dog in the book, it was decided that Buck in the film would be changed to a digital scan of Buckley.

​Live-action directorial debut of Chris Sanders.

---

THE CALL OF THE WILD (2020) MOVIE IMAGES

Images

Posters

Images

Posters

THE CALL OF THE WILD (2020) STORY SYNOPSIS

​Buck is a big-hearted dog whose blissful domestic life gets turned upside down when he is suddenly uprooted from his California home and transplanted to the exotic wilds of the Alaskan Yukon in the 1890s. As the newest rookie on a mail-delivery dog sled team, Buck experiences the adventure of a lifetime as he ultimately finds his true place in the world.

THE CALL OF THE WILD (2020) MOVIE REVIEW

Reviewed by Mark Geraghty   |   Review date 19 February 2020

Pop ​Movee Rating

​The new feature film adaptation of Jack London’s 1903 novel THE CALL OF THE WILD is part-adventure tale, true to the spirit of its literary inspiration, and part-visual effects experiment, drawing a fine line between spectacular computer animation and an unnecessary anthropomorphising of “Buck”,  the movie’s central canine character.

THE CALL OF THE WILD is the first live-action film directed by HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON Director Chris Sanders.  Sanders is vastly experienced in making animated movies, with a career that has included stints at Marvel, Disney and Dreamworks. He worked as an animator on classic Disney animated features such as BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (1991) and THE LION KING (1994).

Sanders’ skill and experience with animation is highly regarded and lent itself to an updated version of THE CALL OF THE WILD, a story where the live-action central character would sooner or later be replaced with a computer rendered version, allowing filmmakers a greater range of “performance”.   

The film’s screenplay is by Michael Green, the writer credited with films such as LOGAN (2017) and BLADE RUNNER 2049 (2017). Green also scripted Kenneth Branagh’s version of MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS (2017) and also worked with him on the next big budget Hercule Poirot mystery thriller DEATH ON THE NILE, currently in post-production and due out later in 2020.

Judging by this film and his previous efforts, Green writes “rugged individualism” and “soulful exploration” quite well. At its heart, THE CALL OF THE WILD explores the idea of finding one’s place in the world and Green has demonstrated this in his work for both Ridley Scott and James Mangold (who’s a Producer on this film). The late 19th Century setting may be a world away from the futuristic setting of BLADE RUNNER 2049 or the bleak near-future of LOGAN, but Harrison Ford’s John Thornton is not that different to Rick Deckard (or James Howlett aka Logan) and it’s the veteran star’s performance that really lifts the film. 

Familiarity with London’s novel is of benefit for the viewer, but not mandatory. The film retains the Canadian Yukon setting, but some of the novel’s modern-day contentious elements, such as the use of Native American Yeehats Indians, have been removed from Green’s screenplay. 

The filmmakers have gone to great lengths to make this a family-friendly movie, so the removal of the story’s St.Bernard-Scotch Collie central character mauling American Indians to death is a wise commercial choice in positioning the film for Box Office success.

As with any film adaptation, Michael Green has taken the opportunity to streamline character in favour of plot. This is a good effort, given the novel itself is relatively slight.

London’s 1903 novel appears in print at a little over two hundred pages and the filmmakers do well to compress Buck’s adventure into a one hundred minute movie without losing the essence of the story.

Sanders, along with Film Editors David Heinz & William Hoy, move the film along at a good pace, but achieve a nice balance between a meaningful exposition and exciting action. There’s enough development of key characters, including Harrison Ford’s John Thornton and Omar Sy’s Francois, throughout the story that the viewer never feels like they’re being moved along for the sake of the action.

Michael Green allocates as much story to Sy’s Francois in the film’s first half as he does to Harrison Ford’s Thornton in the second half. Even though Ford is the reason to see THE CALL OF THE WILD, it’s better film for the inclusion of Sy and an expansion of Francois’s role in the story.

The sequences with Sy are also the best for Buck, as he enters into a battle of wills with “Spitz”, the lead sled dog of Francois’s team. Once Buck arrives in the wilderness, there is too much reliance on him making deductions about how to act. Dogs are certainly intelligent animals, but there’s a little too much intuition being applied in this instance.

Harrison Ford works hard to make sure he doesn’t fall into the trap of becoming Shaggy to Buck’s Scooby. Always minimalist in his performance, Ford, again, keeps a lid on his acting, allowing moments to pass before acknowledging that he understands what Buck is up to. A lesser actor may have been tempted to go bigger in their reactions, but there’s a reason why Ford has had the longevity he has and is one of contemporary cinema’s most enduring stars.

Even though Buck blurs the lines between dog and human, there’s never an issue accepting him and some of the antics he gets up to are less inclined to amuse an adult than they are younger members of the audience.

The only problematic performance in THE CALL OF THE WILD is Dan Stevens as Hal.

Where Ford chooses to hold back and keep his reactions in check, Stevens is all rage and bluster. His performance is at odds with the rest of the cast and it’s surprising that he was allowed to keep going the way he did. THE CALL OF THE WILD relies upon a high level of nuance, especially with Buck’s eye movements, but Stevens has very few restraints placed upon his energy levels. The result is a performance that is at odds with the tone of the film, dragging it into the realm of melodrama.

One over-the-top performance can’t spoil THE CALL OF THE WILD.

This is a good film with a great human star and a larger-than-life computer-generated creation in Buck, who does for dogs what Caesar has done for monkeys with the most recent PLANET OF THE APES trilogy of movies. Granted, Buck doesn’t talk, but he does just about everything else!

THE CALL OF THE WILD MOVIE (2020) USEFUL LINKS

The Call of the Wild (2020 film) - Wikipedia
The Call of the Wild (2020) - IMDb
​The Call of the Wild (2020) - Rotten Tomatoes​

digital updates delivered

facebook

instagram