Dead in the water

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This article was published 09/09/2016 (3664 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A kid-friendly take on the Robinson Crusoe story, this Belgian-produced mid-budget toon offers some zoomy three-dimensional animation. The plot and characters, alas, are flat.

Crusoe is a pleasantly hapless fellow (voiced by Yuri Lowenthal) who washes up on a remote island after a storm at sea. The Wild Life reframes the classic castaway tale from the point of view of the island’s animals, who see Crusoe as a puzzling two-legged invader.

Fortunately, Crusoe finds he has no taste for hunting. With the help of his stout-hearted dog, Aynsley (Doug Stone), and his newfound animal friends, he starts to make a home. Unknown to anyone, though, Crusoe and Aynsley’s on-board enemies, a mangy, menacing feline named May (Debi Tinsley) and her none-too-bright sidekick Tom Cat (Kyle Hebert), have also survived the shipwreck. Trouble ensues.

(A word for pet lovers: the scripters have taken the position that dogs are noble and self-sacrificing, while cats are basically devious serial killers. Make of that what you will.)

The island animals include an echidna, a pangolin and a tapir. (This appealed to me because all these creatures featured heavily in Mammals Strange and Exotic, an odd little nature book I adored as a child.) They may possess some unusual physical features, including spines, scales and prehensile snouts, but in every other way the movie’s talking animal characters remain stock cartoon types.

Mac the parrot (David Howard) is the venturesome one, always wondering about the wide world beyond their small island. “How much paradise can a bird take?” he sighs. Kiki the kingfisher (Marieve Herington) is the stay-at-home worrier.

Belgian directors Vincent Kesteloot and Ben Stassen pull off some rambunctious, energetically animated set-pieces — a storm at sea, a fight between Crusoe and some nasty pirates, and several intricate, extended chase scenes through rickety wooden waterslides and the island’s trees, caves and tunnels.

And while 3D often seems like a lazy default setting for kids’ movies these days, The Wild Life animators really do take full advantage of the technology, with lots of pokey, unpredictable things flying out of the screen toward the audience. Several times at the preview screening I saw little hands reaching up, wanting to touch the wind-tossed leaves, crashing waves, swooping birds or pirate blunderbusses that seemed to be right in front of their faces.

The vocal work for the English version is done by voiceover pros from the anime and video-game worlds, who give it their best but can’t rise much above the dull dialogue and perfunctory characterizations.

The storytelling is clunky and curiously listless, though it’s occasionally lightened by a few dad jokes from an old goat and some visual tricks from a shy chameleon.

Taken all in all, The Wild Life is a harmless but instantly forgettable children’s movie. Unless you’re enduring some really bad weather — say, like Crusoe’s storm at sea — you’re probably better off taking the kids to the park.

alison.gillmor@freepress.mb.ca