It's got to the point that if I watch a CGI animated film, I almost need to have a philisophical wrestling match with myself, because I've begun to lose a clear idea of what it is I'm really watching. Did that make sense? No; nor to me. That seems to be what causes it in the first place. That didn't make sense either, did it?

When I watched 'The Wild' I had this nebulous thought - 'Are we getting so used to these things, that we'll enjoy any old rubbish?' To put it another way, 'The Jungle Book' is (IMHO anyway) one of Disney's lesser 2D films: a rambling, pointless kind of thing with poor artwork, some decent voice work and a couple of very catchy tunes, but who hasn't seen it or at least heard of it, forty years on? On the other hand, I think people are forgetting this film already, and they only made it last year. So if I gave 'Jungle Book' 2.5 stars, I virtually have to give this one fewer, on the basis that I just can't imagine anyone watching it forty years from now.

So if this procession of CGI films are generally mediocre, what is it about them that's mediocre? Could it be partly that
we're seeing about 7 of them per year, which is about as many animated features as were made during the entire 1960's? If that's the case, it's not wholly the film's fault. With such weighty thoughts on my mind I sat down to watch Disney's 'The Wild'.

A group of animal characters (the main two, are lions) 'escape' from a zoo in New York, and after a long boat ride, wind up in the wilderness, which they don't cope with particularly well. What does this sound like?

Well, if you'd said 'Madagascar' you'd be on the money of course. But if you'd said 'The Lion King' you wouldn't be that far wide of the mark, either. In fact the only really major difference between the films is that the animals in 'Madagascar' actively seek their 'freedom', whereas the animals in 'The Wild' basically have it thrust on them - and the main excuse for this is that Disney shoehorned the father-son thing from the first half of 'The Lion King' into this movie and then stretched it out to make it the main point of the movie.

The lion king and son are preditable but not wholly unlikable. There's a squirrel who's just too cookie-cutter to be interesting, a female giraffe who's just boring, a snake who's so unoteworthy he may as well not be there, and a rather laconic (English?!) Koala, who to my amazement I actually found myself enjoying (particularly where he goes mad on the boat).

Someone was to blame for this and 'Madagascar' being so similar, and I'm prepared to believe Disney started first (the same thing happened when 'Dr Strangelove' was rushed out before 'Fail Safe': probably the only time Kubrick worked faster than expected), but animated films are planned many years in advance, and the two studios must have known what the other was doing, so somebody could have flinched. But it wouldn't have been Disney. Their margins have been so small for the last ten years that they couldn't afford to invest twenty million in a film and then can it (and to be honest, if they did start first, why should they?)

Anyway, the main difference is that I was able to sit through this and actually enjoy it sometimes, whereas I just had to grit my teeth through the Dreamworks film. In fact, I've had to grit my teeth through nearly every Dreamworks film except 'Over the Hedge'.

The CGI is better. At least the lions look furry this time, not rubbery - even if they still seem disconcerting in some way I can't put my finger on. Sometimes I think CGI studios just get carried away with textures. "We can make it look so much like fur, that real fur will seem fake from now on."

'The Wild' is a bit sloppy, in that the story doesn't really hold up to much scrutiny, the comedy is rarely more than just amusing, and the characters are generally unremarkable (about the only interesting thing the Giraffe does is sit on the squirrel. Which is weird, because later on, this hippo keeps trying to sit on him as well, for absolutely no sensible reason. I think Disney just like this idea for some reason, because they keep using it). On the other hand it's far from awful - just don't expect to be rolling on the floor.

Not great but watchable, and loads better than the dreadful 'Madagascar'.

**WARNING!: Possible story spoilers if you haven't seen it yet.**

Well, I had heard a lot of mixed opinions about The Wild ever since before it was even released. And since I haven't seen Madagascar yet, I can't really compare the two films throughly, but I can see many of the obvious similarities:

A group of animals from a New York zoo (I think it's Central Park Zoo?) somehow travel to Africa. -- That's the only main similarity I see from what I know of the films. Now, it's time to talk about "The Wild" itself.

From the looks of the cover (with the main cast in front of a NYC skyline of skyscrapers and other buildings), you'd think that the bulk of the film would be in NYC itself. WRONG. The cover and the DVD menu cause false advertising. About half of the film is in NYC, while the other half is either on the ocean or in Africa.

The basic story . . . well, there are lots of stories in this film. That's one thing that bored me while watching this. I think that if Disney really wanted to make this film a success, they should have stuck to one or two of these stories, but not all of them!

There's the "main" focus: Samson the Wild is the star attraction at the zoo, most famous for his mighty roar. However, his cub-sized son, Ryan can only make a kitten-like meowing roar, which causes everyone to laugh and make fun of him (this made me wonder: Where is Ryan's mother?), and sometimes gets him into trouble. Angry by the fact that he will never be able to roar like his "wild-born" father, he hides into a cage in a truck that, beknownt to the cub, is on its way to Africa -- The Wild. Now Samson and his four best friends search through the wild of NYC and the wild of Africa to find Ryan and help him find his roar.

(Yeah, yeah. The writers should have just stuck with this story. It sounds good, sort of like a father-son bonding theme. But no, they had to add more crap to make the story confusing and stupid.)

Side stories:
- The Koala is worshipped by a herd of African wildebeest. (the scenes were funny and catchy, but ick.)
- The squirrel has a crush on the giraffe, and he tries to show that he sees her as more than just "beautiful". (very cute scenes.)
- The curling tournament (pointless, but it was a big part of Ryan running away plot.)

and there were some more, but I find it pointless to continue talking about that.

Other than the multiple storylines (which they should have just made it into a one season TV show on Disney Channel or something - it would have done much better IMO.), the animation was okay. It was the backgrounds and the other tedious details of those backgrounds that made the film worth watching. The plants, flowers, buildings, . . . . everything! Especially when Samson and Co. are riding through Times Square . . . it looked so real (and there was so much shameless plugging, you could shake a stick at it.) and beautiful, it was almost as if they actually shot the scene from life! Truly amazing. The character design, IMO, were okay - they looked more life-like and furry (Dinosaur, anyone?), and not cartoony and crazy like Madagascar was. I enjoyed the realistic look of the characters.

Other than that, the rest of the film was okay. The story seemed to drag on and on and on . . . and the villain was stupid (even his motive for being evil was stupid.), and the humor was bland (with exception of a few parts that gave me a chuckle, but that was it.).

Overall, it was a fair film. I'd suggest drinking lots of caffeine minutes prior to watching "The Wild" - if you don't, you'll probably be asleep by 15 minutes in. It is a good movie to watch if you ignore the characters and just look at the background settings. Over than that, I give it 2 stars - this film is the reason why Disney should have just stuck to traditional 2-D animation.

From the very beginning, The Wild looked so much like Madagascar that everyone immediately assumed it was the latest in a long string of derivative movies made in an attempt to ride the coattails of the more successful ones. When Aladdin came out, other companies tried to cash in on Disney's success with their own versions of the tale. The Little Mermaid? Same thing. Heck, even Universal's Balto has been imitated more times than I can count!

The thing is, from what I've come to understand, The Wild was conceived first, worked on first, and had the unfortunate bad luck of having competition who could steal their idea, make a movie that closely resembled it, and rush it out the door before this movie was finished. In fact, The Wild was supposed to be out last year, but got delayed... either because they weren't done, or I suspect they were forced to by Dreamworks scheduling Madagascar about a month or two before Disney's own movie was to be released.

In the end, it's a shame that Dreamworks has probably killed any chance Disney had of making any money off of The Wild, because while I haven't seen Madagascar, I have seen enough previews, reviews, and even an animated short based on Madagascar, that I would consider The Wild to be the superior movie.

Those who are familiar with Madagascar will probably already know the story of The Wild. Zoo animals from New York City end up in Africa and have an adventure they would never have dreamed of having back home. This time around, the starring lion is Samson, and the movie opens with one of his tales of his days in the wilds of Africa, where he was "Samson the Wild", brave, strong, and possessing a roar that could put a Final Fantasy summon to shame. These days, he lives with his son, Ryan, and his friends in the zoo in Central Park, where for some reason, the main sport is curling. (Note: for those who are curious about the rules of curling, they aren't followed too closely in this movie.) Ryan, insecure about his own roar, accidentally induces a herd of gazelle to stampede when he lets out a Cub Simba-like "Rowr!"... and that's not the only parallel to The Lion King you will be able to find in The Wild. In fact, the animators seem to acknowledge this by showing the Lion King broadway sign during a later scene.

The Lion King similarities aside, The Wild manages to tell its own story well, so well that I would hesitate to say it's as derivative and formulaic as I've made it sound in the preceding paragraph. One minor complaint I have is that some of the other animals display cultural stereotypes for no apparent rhyme or reason, and only show up for a few minutes anyway, making their stereotypes seem more like artificial characterization. The only stereotype I got a kick out of were the Canada Geese near the end of the first half of the movie.

I didn't notice any animation errors or oversights in The Wild, and I didn't feel as if they cut corners anywhere in the detail of their characters or surroundings. Of course, they did seem to cut corners: you will only see humans when humans are absolutely necessary in the story. The streets of NYC are literally bare in The Wild. But only those who look for that kind of thing will notice it without needing it pointed out to them. But that's alright. For some reason, animals are easier to animate than humans, so you can't blame them one bit for omitting them whenever possible.

The characters themselves are voiced well. So well, in fact, that if you don't know who the characters are being voiced by, you will not be able to tell until the end credits roll. When I caught a glimpse of William Shatner's name in the credits, I could not figure out which character he voiced, and by then the listing had scrolled up and off the screen before I could catch the character's name. (I later found out he voiced Kazar, and he did a very good job of it.) He's not the only one who pulled off a wonderful performance. Keifer Sutherland makes a very good lion, just as good a lion as Liam Neeson in Narnia or James Earl Jones in The Lion King.

The music in The Wild is decent, and I wouldn't mind owning the soundtrack. Even their use of a popular Coldplay song from a few years ago, "Clocks", is placed well, and to me it was like hearing it for the first time, again. The accompanying scene alone would be well worth the price of admission, I would say. Without giving anything away, let's just say that those who have visited New York City and seen its buildings and architecture in person for the first time will know what I'm talking about.

If Keyframe used a rating out of 5 stars, I would have no problem giving this movie a 4.5 rating... unfortunately, I can't decide whether this is a high 4.5 or a low 4.5, so it's tough for me to decide if it deserves a 3.5 or a full 4 out of 4. While this movie thoroughly entertained me, and I enjoyed it muchly and wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to everyone, I can't ignore the elements that may turn off other people. Yes, it came out after Madagascar, but Madagascar copied The Wild in the first place. Yes, it contains many nods to The Lion King, and while some may not like Disney continuing to recycle their old films, I happen to like The Lion King, and it turned into a game for me to spot all the references. Yes, some of the details that should've been present were missing (namely: other humans), but this way, the focus isn't shifted unnecessarily off our main characters, and the "Clocks" scene wouldn't have been as spectacular had they been stuck in the notoriously poor NYC traffic.

In the end, a reviewer's score is as much personal preference as it is a reflection of the technical and artistic merit of a movie, and with that in mind, I'm giving The Wild a perfect 4 out of 4.