Barnes & Noble

How do you get to The Wild? Go straight to Finding Nemo and turn left at Madagascar. This computer-animated Disney feature covers similar terrain to those recent hits, which invited comparisons that didn’t help it at the box office. The lead character here is a lion named Samson (a game Kiefer Sutherland), who may not be king of the jungle, but he is the star attraction at the New York Zoo, where he regales his young son, Ryan, with stories of his heroics on the veldt. Too bad they are just stories. Ryan has not yet found his roar, and he is tired of living in his father's immense shadow. When he finds himself on a cargo ship bound for Africa, it is up to the domesticated Samson to rescue him. Along for the wild ride are a menagerie of comic-relief characters including Bridget (Janeane Garofalo), a smart and sexy giraffe; Benny the squirrel (Jim Belushi), who's nuts about Bridget; Larry (Richard Kind), an addled anaconda; and Nigel, a sardonic koala (Eddie Izzard, who takes scene-stealing honors with Robin Williams-like virtuosity). In Africa, Samson meets his redemptive match in Kazar (William Shatner), a wildebeest (and amateur choreographer) who wants to elevate his species' place in the food chain. The Wild is an incessantly hyperverbal, fitfully funny comedy with age-inappropriate jokes that strain to cast a net beyond the core child audience. But the animation is stunningly textured and, during one of Samson's yarns, refreshingly expressionistic. One memorable sequence finds the escaped animals gazing with wonder at a neon-lit nocturnal New York, accompanied by Coldplay's "Speed of Sound." Donald Liebenson

All Movie Guide

A handful of zoo animals leave behind their well-protected environment for the streets of the big city in this computer-animated comedy. Sampson (voice of Kiefer Sutherland) is the king of a make-believe jungle far from the African plains -- he's a lion on display at a zoo in New York City's Central Park, and he lords it over the other animals, including Nigel (voice of Eddie Izzard), a testy koala bear; Larry, a dumb but well-meaning snake; Kazar (voice of William Shatner), a wildebeest with a will to power and a passion for choreography; Bridget (voice of Janeane Garofalo), a bright but cynical giraffe; and Benny (voice of Jim Belushi), a very New York-ish squirrel who is good friends with Sampson and is trying to romance Bridget without much success. The pride and joy of Sampson's life is his son, Ryan (voice of Greg Cipes), and he's devastated when one day Ryan is crated up and sent away to another zoo. Sampson is desperate to find his boy, and with the help of his pals he escapes the zoo and sets out on a rescue mission. However, midtown Manhattan is a new and unfamiliar territory for Sampson and the other critters, and they have a hard time adjusting to the concrete canyons of the Big Apple. The Wild was the first directorial credit for animator and special-effects artist Steve "Spaz" Williams. Mark Deming

Product Details

• UPC: 786936248951
• Source: WALT DISNEY VIDEO
• Region Code: 1
• Aspect Ratio: Alternate Wide Screen (1.78:1)
• Presentation: Wide Screen
• Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
• Language: English, Français, Español
• Time: 1:22:00
• Sales Rank: 29,574

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