Now we see the great production set in its natural environment…
Peter is trying to follow the footsteps of his late, great father in the nature show business. With the lack of nature and facts at hand, Peter is struggling to make ends meet, especially since the network who sponsored him is pulling his 3am show. He has a small amount of time to prove to the network that he can do the show and do it well. Thanks to the help of Bill Calhoun (a friend of his father’s), he and his band of production folk are on the trail of bigfoot, who resides in South America. The catch? Calhoun, needing money for his addictions, has also given the information to Peter’s longtime rival, Sky Pierson. Peter and his crew must get to bigfoot before Sky or its lights out for his show and more than likely his career.
It’s a shame about this film. You had all the right comedians, Jonah Hill (the fat guy from Superbad, 40-Year old Virgin, etc), Steve Zahn, Allen Covert (who is in every Happy Madison Production), Justin Long (Apple guy), Ernest Borgnine and Kevin Heffernan (who is from Super Troopers). With all of these personalities they should make one of the more epic comedies of our time. There’s a lot of humor to be had through these folks.
The problem comes when Fred Wolf, and writers, start to produce a script that contains nothing more than rude, dirty jokes that could be compared to something you would hear in high school halls. For example, the guy who takes the group down to meet with the tracking leader (who leads them to bigfoot) is named Dick. For about a minute the group makes fun of this guy’s name in front of him and the first two jokes were fine, but it keeps rolling. It gets old, childish and the laughter dies with the audience’s attention span, but Wolf seems to think that it’s necessary for it to keep going. Wolf, who is known for acting/writing for SNL and for being on The Chevy Chase Show, has directed this film and The House Bunny (which was mildly humorous and successful). With that said, he should definitely know better than to bring the intelligence of the humor down a few notches. The House Bunny contained more intelligent humor and sophistication than Strange Wilderness. If Wolf, and his fellow writer Peter Gaulke, would have just upped the ante a bit and given more thought to the humor delivery process (better than ‘Dick’ jokes please), this movie could have been in the shrine of comedies. Regretfully it is not, nor does it ever reach its true potential.
And no… I will not mention the turkey scene. Ever.
Blu skies for the critters
There isn’t any question that what you find on a Blu-ray these days will spoil your view of how good video can look. When I say spoil I completely mean that you will be spoiled. For a comedy like Strange Wilderness this works out well. You have some bright and sunny locales that really bring out the vivid picture that Blu-ray can accomplish. While the audio side certainly doesn’t pound its chest with this movie, it still sounds sweet coming through a 7.1 source (and 5.1 for you commoners — just kidding). Anyway, you shouldn’t expect anything less than beautiful with this film.
As for the special features, here’s what you’re looking at:
– Cooker’s Song
– The Turkey
– Reel Comedy: Strange Wilderness
– Deleted Scenes
They are decent features with the ‘Reel Comedy’ feature probably being the best out of the bunch. Enjoy Cooker’s song.
