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Strange Wilderness is directed by Fred Wolf and stars
Steve Zahn (That Thing You Do), Allen Covert, Jonah Hill
(Superbad), Robert Patrick (Terminator 2), Joe Don Baker
(Walking Tall) and Ernest Borgnine (the Dirty Dozen.) Strange
Wilderness follows the life of an animal lover and his close
friend/sidekick. The twosome hosts an animal-based show
entitled Strange Wilderness, but their ratings are fast
declining. This leaves the twosome to come up with a way
to save their show and ratings. Their decision to save the
show? Hunt down Bigfoot. ***
This is the latest in a long line of critical failures
for Happy Madison productions, whose filmography of recent
years has been, to say the least, terrible. While Strange
Wilderness certainly isn't the worst thing we've ever seen
from this studio on the decline, it doesn't do anything
to help the company's ailing name either. ***
Considering some of the big names that appear in this
movie - Joe Don Baker, Robert Patrick, and Ernest Borgnine,
to name a few, I at least expected to be partially entertained
here. What we get is just under an hour and a half of a
cast that puts forth little effort, weak direction, bad
writing, and perhaps most critically of all, a movie that
isn't even that comical. Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't
comedies supposed to make the aud ience laugh? ***
There are no redeeming qualities here. The performances,
direction, acting, and the overall tone of the film are
all terrible. I'm sure sometime in the not-so-distant future
Happy Madison will put out a movie that redeems the decade-or-so
of crap they've been churning out. And the sooner the better.
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Image and Sound:
A slight boost up from standard def, but it appears
this blu-ray transfer was made from the same transfer they
used on the standard def release last year. There’s a boost
in fine-object detail, and as a whole things look better
and clearer throughout. Audio gets an upgrade to TrueHD,
but as a comedy this isn’t the kind of movie that gets a
massive improvement because of it. all in all Strange Wilderness
looks pretty good in 1080p, just don’t be expecting a massive
upgrade from the DVD.
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