"The Wild," the latest feature cartoon from Walt Disney Studios, starts out with a few strikes against it, including a story suspiciously similar to last year's "Madagascar." But "The Wild," as it turns out, is better than its zoo-escape rival. It has a good director, snazzy visuals and some really funny animals, and that's at least half the battle.
Directed by visual effects specialist Steve "Spaz" Williams, "Wild" is about a group of New York City zoo chums who wind up in the jungles together and find that living there, while sometimes a blast, can be hazardous to their health. For them, a world full of predatory beasts isn't necessarily preferable to a city full of Yankees fans and occasional muggers.
If that story sounds a lot like "Madagascar," it may be because there aren't that many ideas circulating around Hollywood these days. In any case, "The Wild" sends its zoo crew, headed by star lion Samson (Kiefer Sutherland), back to the jungle and presents them with an unnerving foe: a gang of overreaching wildebeests, prodded by their bullying leader, Kazar (William Shatner), who wants them all to rise on the food chain.
"Madagascar," with its similar setup, wasn't a very good movie. If you enjoyed it, it was probably because you dug the all-star vocal cast (Chris Rock as the zebra, Ben Stiller as the lion, David Schwimmer as the giraffe and Jada Pinkett Smith as the sensuous hippo) and the bows to the great Minimalist style of Looney Tunes maestros Chuck Jones and Friz Freleng.
"The Wild" is better, mostly because it has some truly spectacular animation and because the cast is just as likable -- even, in some cases, preferable.
Sutherland's Samson, whom I like as a lion better than Stiller as Alex, is the zoo's big sports star (in a weird sport called turtle-curling, involving actual turtles) and also the overly boastful dad of teenage cub Ryan (Greg Cipes of "Deadwood"), who has been beguiled by Dad's tales of the old veld battles and wants to see for himself. So he does, after getting wrongly boxed up for shipment, with his would-be rescuers Samson and his buddies chasing through New York, its alligator-infested sewer system and eventually across the ocean.
