The Wild (2006)

Lets get one thing straight here, this isn't a bad animated film, not really, it just had the HUGE misfortune of coming out after 'Madagascar'. Well I'm not sure whether this came out too late or they did indeed try to rip off the aforementioned film, probably just too late.

The plot, settings and entire idea is unfortunately almost identical to 'Madagascar'. A bunch of crazy animals all live together in a zoo lead by the mighty lion 'Samson'. One day 'Samson' accidentally upsets his cub son causing him to run away, get trapped and...you guessed it, get shipped off to Africa. So 'Samson' and the other animals including a Koala, Giraffe, snake and squirrel, all go off on an adventure to rescue 'Ryan' the lion cub.

I can't really go into how utterly stupid this is seeing as its a kids film. But alligators in New York's sewers, the fact they all end up in Africa from leaving NY is pretty amazing, no idea where in Africa though but a volcano?. And the fact there are hardly any humans around anywhere...including in NY. Yes I know its a silly kiddie film but lets have some degree of sense.

One major problem here is the characters aren't too spectacular and AGAIN almost identical to errr that other wildlife animation. The only character that shows any signs of creativity was 'Nigel' the Koala who has a British accent voiced by the brilliant Eddie Izzard. This little guy was pretty neat, Izzard does a great job making him a very nervous, easily scared, unfit, slightly squiffy fellow who hates the fact his likeness is a famous plush zoo toy souvenir. Its Eddie's dry, wry flat deliveries that make you laugh, well for us Brits anyway. Quite liked the Noo Yawker tawk of the sewer alligators also, that's a good accent.

Plus, Patrick Warburton, standard requirement for animated films it seems. Not a problem seeing as his voice is brilliantly funny, lucky huh!.

Its all completely and totally predictable with visual gags that have been used all before. The animation isn't that bad, a different style to 'Madagascar' with fur effects giving a little more realism, 'Ryan' the cub is undeniably cute. The wildebeests actually look pretty cool I though, quite evil and I liked the little intro animation revolving around them at the start.

Shame they chose to include modern pop music within the film but other than that its a fair animation that is fun to watch. Had it come out before that other silly zoo animation then the tables would be turned hehe but such is life.

4/10