FIERCE CREATURES
A film review by Michael Redman
Copyright 1997 Michael Redman
**1/2 (out of ****)
The characters from "A Fish Called Wanda" are back for another go at it. They've changed their names and jobs, but with John Cleese, Kevin Kline, Jamie Lee Curtis and Michael Palin returning, the comparison is inevitable, although it is not actually a sequel.
Rupert Murdock clone Rod McCain (Kline) adds a British Zoo to his empire and sets about turning it into a money-maker by requiring that it only feature dangerous animals. With the Rambo mode in mind, he decides that the public is in love with violence and orders the zoo to do away with the cuter furry guys.
Rollo Lee (Cleese) is the zookeeper in charge of carrying out the orders which result in an execution order for the less desirable critters. This brings about the film's most humorous scenes as the animal handlers try to convince him that their charges are indeed man-killers. With fake blood and scrapes, they capture an escaped deadly anteater, "Watch out for his tongue!" The harmless mammals are disguised as bloodthirsty: the cuddly meercat is portrayed as the piranha of the desert that can strip a corpse in three minutes.
McCain sends his son Vince (Kline again) and newly hired Willa Weston (Curtis) to England to make sure that his orders are carried out and the operation shows a 20% profit. Weston is on the high speed career track and wants to impress her new boss until she is charmed by the furry ones. Vince is only interested in getting Weston and her well-displayed ample cleavage into the sack.
Once there, McCain The Younger sets about turning the zoo into marketing hell. Commercial sponsor banners are everywhere and the tortoise compound becomes "Bruce Springstein Presents" The keepers' uniforms are plastered with corporate patches like those of stock car drivers.
Like "Wanda", part of the success of this movie depends on juxtaposing British and American sensibilities. And like its predecessor, there are some hilarious scenes. The difference between the two films is that this one doesn't work quite so well. The slapstick is occasionally clumsy and mis-timed. There is little that goes over the top.
British humor sensibilities are different than what the people on this continent are used to. Some of it is so dry that we might miss it unless paying close attention. Other aspects are so goofy that they have to be top notch in order not to just look moronic.
When the film was originally shown to test audiences last year, the viewers hated the ending so much that a new director was called in to a re-shoot.
The film does do well with a number of scenes. The sex farces (Cleese is often mistaken as a sexual acrobat as he talks to animals in his bedroom and is thought to be orgying with hot babes and is discovered innocently half-dressed in a hotel room with two women) are comical, although they could have been more outrageous. The vision of the keepers dressed in outrageous animal costumes running around like chickens with their heads off is hilarious.
The movie is entertaining, but it misses a bit too often. Gentlemen I knew "A Fish Called Wanda", and this, sirs, is no "Wanda".
[This appeared in The "Bloomington Voice", Bloomington, Indiana, 2/13/97. Michael Redman can be contacted at mredman@bvoice.com ]
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews