Thanks for checking out our Strange Wilderness review!
The General Idea
The son (Peter Gaulke) of a legendary wildlife show host attempts to fill his father’s shoes after his untimely passing. Pete (Steve Zahn) and his ragamuffin production crew run the show into the ground with a lack of ability and drug abuse. Upon being given 2 weeks notice from the network unless they deliver something “big”. They get a lead on a Bigfoot sighting in South America and start off on a road trip, doing 4 nature shows on the way down.
The Good
Every time this film showed nature footage with overdubs – I laughed my ass off. It was ridiculous, outlandish, peculiar and it just made me howl. These short videos were the best part of the film and the last shark video is easily the best of them all. I posted this video a while back, and it made me laugh just as hard when I saw it in the theatre. Everyone was in stitches in the theatre I was in, and that ridiculous shark made my day.
A lot of the drug humor fell flat and seemed unnecessary, but one short scene with a bottle of ether in an RV was also very funny. I will not ruin it for you, but stuff gets out of hand and everyone looks like they are in a Red Hot Chili Peppers Video.
The Bad
Like the characters in this film, it seemed like this film was slapped together by people that were high and had no desire for quality. The dialogue was horrible, most jokes fell flat and a lot of the gags just came off as lame. Many of the scenes seemed to be flat out improv, and instead of shooting till they got something good – it felt like they just kept the first take.
Peter Dante was in this film and usually makes me howl, but this time out, most of his lines were hurting and his best comedic opportunity was group vomiting into the mouth of a shark. I was excited to see him in the film, but was bummed out that he wasn’t given the tools necessary to bring the “ha ha” I am accustomed to.
You can see in the performances that the actors did not believe in the project, and you almost sense that they are mocking themselves as they work. This is so blatant that the movie itself ends on a scene that would normally be an out-take. The guys bust out laughing because the movie ends on such a ridiculous line – and they kept that shot as the final scene of the film; and in a strange way it worked. You knew the film sucked, and so did they – so in some sense it was refreshing to see that they were in on the joke that was this film
Overall
There are a lot of reasons to dislike this film. That being said, I laughed very, very hard at a few points. The animal clips were great, but the rest pretty much sucked. It was like an awesome animal episode of America’s Funniest Home videos and you just wanted the show to fast forward to the next clip.
As I was leaving the theatre, I was laughing at how funny some stuff was, and also at the blatant lack of effort or concern for quality. I would only recommend this film to personal friends that appreciate the absolutely ridiculous, but as a rule – I would not suggest you see it. Movies that suck, and yet entertain me at points are always the hardest to rate. I suppose I would have to give this film a reluctant 5/10. This is too high a mark for the quality of film that it was, but the animal videos did make me laugh very much, and since the film is a comedy, pragmatically I have to give it a passing grade of 50%. The film currently has a 0% at Rotten Tomatoes, ouch.
Here is the best part of the movie so you can skip it:
