The Call of the Wild

The Call of the Wild

Starring Harrison Ford, Dan Stevens, Omar Sy, Cara Gee

Directed by Chris Sanders

If there's a beloved story that was written over a hundred years ago, you can fully expect it to receive the Hollywood film treatment - sometimes several times over.  Jack London's beloved novella "The Call of the Wild" has been done and re-done for the big screen, and the most recent iteration finds itself set apart from most, but not for the right reasons.

Buck - a domesticated St. Bernard/Scottish Collie mix - is living in the lap of luxury in Santa Clara, whose owner is a wealthy judge (Bradley Whitford), and who has no self-control when it comes to anything, which is what leads him to be put outside for the night.  It's during that night he's abducted and sold to freight haulers heading to the Yukon to sell dogs to prospectors who are searching for gold in the unforgiving winter wilderness, and Buck is sold to mail carriers Perrault (Omar Sy) and Francoise (Cara Gee).  At first Buck finds it difficult to work with the other dogs, but as he gains his own sense of accomplishment and pride in his work, he begins to build rapport with the other dogs and his new owners after saving Francoise from a frozen lake, and quickly becomes the alpha dog leader.

When the paper company closes the business, Buck and the other dogs are bought by schemer Hal (Dan Stevens), who plans to use them to get rich in the Yukon, but don't really care for their well-being.  This alarms John Thornton (Harrison Ford), who's encountered Buck a few times previously and has grown an affirmation for the dog, the sole being he's been concerned with since entering isolation after his son's death.  Thornton manages to rescue Buck and together the two embark on a special journey that Thornton's son wanted to take, and Buck finally begins to realize his own place in the world and discover that he can be his own master.

I've never been one to criticize a film for how far it's strayed from its source material, since I probably read "The Call of the Wild" sometime in high school some twenty years ago, and while Disney really diluted the deep existential thought processes, racism, and animal cruelty the novella provided, that's not what really made it lackluster compared to its predecessors.

Nor is it the acting, as all the humans perform admirably in their roles, especially Harrison Ford, who had to act next to a CGI dog for the majority of the film.  While he's no stranger to acting alongside non-human entities (like most of his time in "Star Wars"), Ford really has to try his hardest here, and it really shows.  You feel a sense of connection between the two, but it doesn't really fall organically or realistically, and is often disjointed - not to mention his newly adapted backstory of being depressed of his young son's death that was never mentioned in the book.

The story has a few strong points that could've really established it as something decent if it had stuck to one or the other.  When Buck is taken in by the mail carriers, he really begins to fall into his own, becoming a caretaker and protector instead of just looking out for himself, which is the real crux of the story.  He challenges the dominant, selfish alpha dog for the lead, which culminates in a highly stressful night struggle that's equally horrifying and mildly depressing, but this really establishes who Buck was, and who he's meant to be.  The other is the obvious part of the story - when Buck and John finally connect, which doesn't happen until there's like only forty-five minutes left in the film.  Their journey of self-discovery is very cliche and serves the typical man-helps-dog-helps-man motif, and becomes so full of sentimentality it's almost nauseating.

The set designs and cinematography are also top notch, as it allows us to delve into the full realm of possibilities of the unforgiving Yukon during the late 1800s gold rush, but still project a sense of amazement and beauty that's unparalleled.  The two things that make the film very lackluster are the CGI effects and pandering to a more generalized audience and the jarring mood changes.

When the first trailer came out, I laughed out loud in seeing Buck, an obvious CGI creation that could've passed if it was the early 2010s.  Yes, the film is about his journey and his story, but they made him almost human in his mannerisms, expressions, and everything in between - like having a mute best friend quietly judging you for all your misdeeds.  I can fully understand why they went with the direction of having CGI dogs instead of real ones - trying to handle real animals can be very complicated, they wouldn't be able to get the "human emotions," and PETA would've been all over their backs after seeing what the animals would have to go through in the film - but they could've made the CGI a bit more believable, or at best less grating.

The film received a PG rating (even though if it followed the book more closely, it would've been PG-13 bordering on a light R), and as such it tried to reach a wider range of audiences, but ends up being a bit too violent for children and a bit overly sentimental for adults, alienating both.  The film also shifts its tone and mood several times throughout, ranging from epic action to hometown drama and even some melodramatic cat-and-mouse where you'd expect the villain to hogtie Harrison Ford to train tracks and twist his handlebar mustache as the train approaches.  It doesn't fully accept what it could've been, and if the film had gone in a few different directions it could've worked out well, but instead it decided to go in every direction at once, and like a passenger on a dogsled, if some dogs go one way and others go another, you're just bound to stumble and fall.

"The Call of the Wild" has been a classic novella for over a hundred years, but this current Hollywood iteration strips pretty much everything from it, delivering a more family-friendly PG film with severe overuse of CGI and an overly sentimental story.

The Score: B-