Spring Break
Don't Venture Into 'Wilderness'
Movie Review
Stephen Ortiz
Issue date: 2/4/08 Section: Focus
Before discussing anything else, lets just understand that "Strange Wilderness" is not worth watching. In fact, it probably doesn't even think it counts as a movie.
Now with that aside, "Wilderness" is the latest from Adam Sandler's production company, Happy Madison, which is also known for such "gems" as "Deuce Bigalow: European Gigalow," "The Benchwarmers" and "Grandma's Boy." Quite a track record.
The movie follows Peter Gaulke (Steve Zahn), the host of wildlife show Strange Wilderness and his ragtag crew played by an ensemble cast that includes Justin Long ("Live Free or Die Hard"), Jonah Hill ("Superbad") and Allen Covert ("I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry").
Gaulke's show faces any television program's greatest fear: being cancelled. With ratings running into the ground, the group needs to find a way to revitalize the show and beat out a rival, better show. The logical answer to their problem? Why find Bigfoot of course!
"Strange Wilderness" is just bad. There is nothing funny about these tired, old jokes. They are crude and they lack any real effort from the writers.
One scene has Zahn and the rest of the cast meeting a guide named Dick (Blake Clark). They proceed to make countless jokes about how his name is also a synonym for the word penis and laugh like a group of 11-year olds.
The plot is as lame as can be, and can be a bit incoherent most of the time. Example: they need money so they can travel down to the Andes and find Bigfoot. The solution? A turkey owned by a government animal research organization latches onto Zahn's private parts while peeing outdoors and they get a $5,000 reward for it.
Oh and that turkey? It looked like a giant box covered in brown paper mache - this movie must have been filmed on a clearance budget.
Despite the potential of the cast, it really didn't seem like they cared. Hill, who has been tremendous in recent endeavors, really didn't bring anything to this film and spouted unnecessary obscenities now and then, Covert and Kevin Heffernan ("Beerfest") were shallow, standard … guys who were just standing there, because there's really no way to describe them besides that Long was the only one who was partially comedic as his stoner character, Junior.
Another terribly disturbing tidbit - Zahn is a Harvard graduate. He's been in his fair share of decent comedies in his career ("Saving Silverman" and "You've Got Mail" to name a few), as well as very good movies like last year's fantastic "Rescue Dawn" and "Shattered Glass." Actors make bad decisions now and then, but not this bad.
"Strange Wilderness" is only good enough to generate about two laughs in its hour and a half runtime, and really undercuts the standards of the stoner comedy it set out to be.
Contact Stephen Ortiz
at Stephen.Ortiz@UConn.edu.
Now with that aside, "Wilderness" is the latest from Adam Sandler's production company, Happy Madison, which is also known for such "gems" as "Deuce Bigalow: European Gigalow," "The Benchwarmers" and "Grandma's Boy." Quite a track record.
The movie follows Peter Gaulke (Steve Zahn), the host of wildlife show Strange Wilderness and his ragtag crew played by an ensemble cast that includes Justin Long ("Live Free or Die Hard"), Jonah Hill ("Superbad") and Allen Covert ("I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry").
Gaulke's show faces any television program's greatest fear: being cancelled. With ratings running into the ground, the group needs to find a way to revitalize the show and beat out a rival, better show. The logical answer to their problem? Why find Bigfoot of course!
"Strange Wilderness" is just bad. There is nothing funny about these tired, old jokes. They are crude and they lack any real effort from the writers.
One scene has Zahn and the rest of the cast meeting a guide named Dick (Blake Clark). They proceed to make countless jokes about how his name is also a synonym for the word penis and laugh like a group of 11-year olds.
The plot is as lame as can be, and can be a bit incoherent most of the time. Example: they need money so they can travel down to the Andes and find Bigfoot. The solution? A turkey owned by a government animal research organization latches onto Zahn's private parts while peeing outdoors and they get a $5,000 reward for it.
Oh and that turkey? It looked like a giant box covered in brown paper mache - this movie must have been filmed on a clearance budget.
Despite the potential of the cast, it really didn't seem like they cared. Hill, who has been tremendous in recent endeavors, really didn't bring anything to this film and spouted unnecessary obscenities now and then, Covert and Kevin Heffernan ("Beerfest") were shallow, standard … guys who were just standing there, because there's really no way to describe them besides that Long was the only one who was partially comedic as his stoner character, Junior.
Another terribly disturbing tidbit - Zahn is a Harvard graduate. He's been in his fair share of decent comedies in his career ("Saving Silverman" and "You've Got Mail" to name a few), as well as very good movies like last year's fantastic "Rescue Dawn" and "Shattered Glass." Actors make bad decisions now and then, but not this bad.
"Strange Wilderness" is only good enough to generate about two laughs in its hour and a half runtime, and really undercuts the standards of the stoner comedy it set out to be.
Contact Stephen Ortiz
at Stephen.Ortiz@UConn.edu.
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