[DVD Review (R2)] STRANGE WILDERNESS
Strange Wilderness is a strange movie. Stick that on your poster in big bold letters. It’s only strange in the same sense that it would be strange if you watched, say, a Steven Seagal movie with great acting, a great script and great martial arts sequences. You’d be thinking “That’s not what I’ve come to expect!” right?
Well, with Strange Wilderness you have the directorial debut (and co-scribing talents) of Fred Wolf, one of the pillars of Saturday Night Live, with a cast led by one of the greatest comic support actors working in the industry today, Steve Zahn. He is, in turn, backed up by reliable figures like Jonah Hill (from the likes of Super-Bad and Knocked Up), Justin Long (from Dodgeball and The Break-Up), Kevin Heffernan (from the Broken Lizard movies) and Allen Covert (from many an Adam Sandler movie). That’s not to mention the support that is offered by the likes of Ernest Borgnine, Robert Patrick, Joe Don Baker, Harry Hamlin and Jeff Garlin. So, you know, you expect… well… sorry to be blunt about it… but you kinda expect… laughs? Yeah?
And yet the movie is devoid of a single laugh. I mean it. Not one. Not even a pity laugh. Not so much as a wry, guilty smirk. And you know me, I’m not afraid to go against the critical masses when it comes to comedy and just call it out for being able to do what it is supposed to do - make me laugh! See my review for Balls of Fury for example. But Strange Wilderness is a movie that I just sat there with for 89 minutes with my mouth agog, deeply embarrassed at all that was occuring.
When his father dies, Peter Gaulke (Steve Zahn) inherits “Strange Wilderness”, his dad’s TV show about wildlife. After ratings plummet and the show is threatened with cancellation, Peter finds himself with two more weeks to miraculously bring the show out of the gutter and keep it on the air. An old friend brings a story to him about Bigfoot in Ecuador, so Peter and his team head off to get it on tape and use the exclusive to save the show.
This is just an awful movie. With nigh on every critically reviled comedy (asides from The Love Guru of course) I tend to find myself coming to it and thinking “You know, it wasn’t THAT bad. Maybe they should have watched it drunk!” but not with Strange Wilderness. I watched it for review, went back once I’d had a drink and tried to watch it again to see if alcohol made it play any better. Not so.
Jonah Hill, normally a comedian I have a huge amount of time for, is a disaster from start to finish in this but it is unfair to highlight just him. It’s more to do with the fact that his clunky appearance hurt the most. Steve Zahn and Justin Long are equally horrible too; Zahn, who I’m a big, big fan of normally, mugs and gurns and screams and shouts for all his might but just keeps crumbling. Then there’s the smoking hot Ashley Scott (from the guilty pleasure that was Into The Blue and the gone but still in my heart TV firecracker that was Jericho) who is completely and utterly unable to perform comedy. Which, you know, is kind of imperative when you’re in a comedy?
Strange Wilderness is so incompetent and lazy that it cannot even be bothered to work for itself let alone for us the audience. A gag involving Justin Long’s character having eyes tattooed on his eyelids so it looks like he is awake when he isn’t is ruined by the fact that in EVERY shot following the introduction he is without the tattoos, noticably so. Then there is that genuinely ‘what the fuck’ final take when it genuinely apears that the filmaker and all involved just thought “You know what? This is a fucking embarrassment. Pack up! Let’s go!” - in the middle of the bloody scene! Characters are talking and then all of a sudden it descends into an actual outtake, then text comes up on screen moronically telling us that “this” “this” and “this” happened and you suddenly realise that you’ve been wasting your time on a movie that could not even be bothered to end.
Sigh. This is a movie that would consider its own “high point” to be a scene in which the lead character gets his penis stuck in a turkey’s throat. Yes, you read that right. The sub-par Farrelly Brothers rip-offs in the world of comedy died a long time ago, but Strange Wilderness has dug the rotting corpse back up and pissed all over it. But this aforementioned scene only exists to crash face down into the proverbial ground. There’s a good forty odd minutes after this whereby the film scratches and claws away and digs down even further. For example, I’ve never felt SO embarrassed for a group of talented comedians and performers then in the scene where they mock a character because his name is Dick, desperately trying to find anything and everything to comedically latch on to within the scene and come up with nothing. How could they? “Dick” jokes were stale in 1949!
This film is utterly devoid of merit. Even if it didn’t crack my funny-bone, but just came across as likeable (like Semi Pro for example) then that would be something. Instead it is an utter abomination. Seriously. It’s produced by Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison production outfit, who are normally responsible for those god awful Rob Schneider movies. Well… you will come out of Strange Wilderness thinking one of two things: 1) “This movie could have really done with Rob Schneider in it!” or 2) “Man, I’m going to go watch some Rob Schneider movies!”
Yes, Strange Wilderness is THAT bad.
Popcorn Ratings Explained Related Posts:‘NO POPCORNS’
5 Responses to “[DVD Review (R2)] STRANGE WILDERNESS”
In a way I’m quite surprised by this, I remember watching the trailer and thinking it looked quite funny - but then, that’s the beauty of trailers. Show you some bits out of context that make you laugh and think it’s a good movie. So thanks for saving me a laugh-free night of watching this!
Mate, it’s an abomination. Honest. It’s the type of movie where you genuinely will sit, occasionally looking at your wife or partner as if to say “Seriously? They released this?”
When there’s a bloke got his dick stuck in a turkey’s throat and the nurse starts rubbing the turkey’s throat to relax it, therefore wanking the bloke off… and you don’t so much as smirk, you KNOW you’re on a hiding to nowhere!
Avoid! Avoid! Avoid!
And thanks for commenting on it - it’s appreciated
I think I read some positive-ish reviews of this film when it was going under another title? A lot of reviews were saying it had Napoleon Dynamtite-esque charms?
Doesn’t sound like that from your review, Gazz! Jeepers, it sounds one to avoid.
The clip of the laughing shark cracked me up, but other than that, this looks like trash.
If they’d highlighted that one little bit and then moved on then THAT would have been a comedic moment worth talking about. But in the film that one bit is replayed over and over again for like 40 seconds, with the same gag played over the top.
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