Based on the classic book of the same name written by Jack London in 1903, The Call of the Wild is an entertaining family-friendly adventure movie that does a good job of retelling the timeless story and making the excellent casting choice of Harrison Ford, but the emotional impact is lessened by the over-reliance on CGI for the animal characters. Taking place in the 1890s, the plot follows a kindly large dog named Buck who we first meet living a normal happy life as a pet in California until he is stolen and eventually sent to the Alaskan Yukon to be sold as a sled dog. Over the course of the film, Buck goes through several owners as he acclimates to the bitterly cold Alaskan wilderness and is first used by a friendly couple as a member of a dog sled team delivering mail to remote outposts. However, he does fall into the hands of a vicious owner who is definitely out of his element named Hal, played by Dan Stevens of Downton Abbey fame, and physically abuses the dog team and pushes them to do things that are extremely dangerous. The true emotional heart of the movie takes place in the second half when Buck finally becomes the companion of the troubled yet compassionate John Thornton, played by the terrific Harrison Ford, who moves to the Yukon to simply get away from humanity after a family tragedy. Like the breathtaking scenery of the Yukon, Buck and Thornton develop a very beautiful relationship in which they care for one another in their own different ways, and Buck truly becomes man’s best friend. Rather effectively, Thornton also is the common thread throughout the movie because he is the narrator of Buck’s adventures all the way from California to the isolation of the Alaskan wilderness. The presence of Harrison Ford’s voice and his empathetic acting performance give the audience a certain degree of calmness that everything will turn out alright for Buck and Thornton. The filmmakers did make the mistake of wholly creating Buck and the other dogs out of CGI and giving the animals overly expressive faces and behaviors that enter the realm of the uncanny valley in which they unrealistically mimic humans, thereby making it rather cheesy and distracting. Overall, I found it to be a nice and comforting adventure tale that displays the important bond between human and animal and is also a wonderful tribute to the universally acclaimed writer Jack London by creating a atmosphere that would fit right at home with the novel’s themes about nature and love.
KEITH on Reels 