One of the first movies I saw at last years’ Regina International Film Festival was Wolves Unleashed: Against All Odds, a fascinating documentary about the process of rearing and training wolves for movies. And it left me with a deeper appreciation for animal trainers and the roles of animals in cinema. Though often overlooked, they can be great actors in their own right, like Pal the Collie, Keiko the Killer Whale, and Bart the Bear. These kind of animal performers were on my mind while watching The Call of the Wild, the latest envisioning of the Jack London classic, the first adaptation made without a real dog.
And from the start that glaring absence gives the film a pervading emptiness. The animals, with their askew physiology, comic (though completely unfunny) dexterity, and humanistic expressions (not to mention very emotive eyes) are so obviously digital and completely separate in their reality from that of the humans that it’s difficult to connect with them on any meaningful level. They are hollow creations, barely more palpable next to real people than the cartoons of Roger Rabbit, and that’s especially bad for a story so driven by an animal. And Buck is one of the great animal characters of literature, the spoiled Californian dog kidnapped and taken to the Yukon, who through a series of harrowing experiences, adventures, and masters is drawn back to the wolfish roots of his ancestors and the way of the wild. An exceptionally vivid character on page, he ironically is more two-dimensional when every aspect of his behaviour and mannerisms is controlled by a VFX animator. Terry Notary plays the part via performance capture in an effort to make Buck physically believable, but in this choice the film fails to understand just how physically incompatible dogs are from people. A human actor can never quite replicate a dogs’ mannerisms, behaviour, or movements, and while a real dog may not have the perfect physical versatility or easily relatable aspect of a conveniently digital analogue, it does have a raw authenticity that engenders greater empathy and investment. I mean who would see a dog movie that doesn’t allow them to see an actual cute dog?
Of course the portrayal of Buck and the rest of the non-human cast isn’t the only area that The Call of the Wild cheats in. The whole northern environment is likewise digital as you can tell by way of the production design being a little too perfect. The ice and snow is much too clean, the forests much too uniform, and you don’t have to have been to the Yukon to tell (though I have and can). This may be the ideal toolbox for director Chris Sanders of Lilo & Stitch and How to Train Your Dragon, but it creates a considerable dissonance between the human subjects and the wild. It’s a much more pristine and majestic world than the one Jack London wrote about, the film frequently mistaking primitivism for a romantic naturalism. Buck’s not supposed to be drawn to the beauty of nature or some kind of nobility in his wolfish brethren; it’s a primal call of the wild, one tinged with violence, an ancient natural order, and a lust for dominance. And it really shouldn’t come as a surprise that this version would ignore all that.
The film was released by Twentieth Century Studios and you can tell there’s been a change of management. It might be first apparent with the CGI animals and environments, or with the presence of a number of actors most famous in recent years for roles under a particular company. But probably the greatest indicator is in how watered down the story is, even compared to previous adaptations. The most iconic scene of the novel, where Buck fights and kills his rival sled-dog, is rewritten to avoid bloodshed or any complexity for our protagonist; and afterward just about every other significant death of the story is circumvented -in fact one bit of exposition to establish such is laughable in its absurd alternative. There’s less hardship to Buck’s journey -the beating he endures on the ferry north is downplayed to the point it might as well have been eliminated entirely. And then there’s things such as re-contextualizing the last act of the story as an “adventure” rather than a gold-finding expedition and Buck even curbing the alcoholism of his last and kindest master John Thornton (Harrison Ford).
Ford is one of the bright spots of the film, a damn near perfect Thornton and he plays off Buck very well, especially given the dog isn’t there. He’s got both the gruff old-fashioned masculine hardiness and the warm kindness necessary for the only human Buck ever had strong feelings for. The choice to have him narrate obvious themes or story points throughout the movie however was a bad call, obnoxiously condescending to audiences in the assumption they either can’t follow basic character arcs or won’t tolerate an absence of humanity for a stretch. Omar Sy is the other standout of the cast as the joyful French-Canadian courier, so enthusiastic and charismatic that the fluff tone of his portion of the movie is much easier to bear than it might have been otherwise.
As much as I despise how this film is a textbook distillation of “brand integrity” when it comes to adapting stories, cutting out the important themes and less jejune content in the name of an elusive definition of a “family-friendly” commercial image, The Call of the Wild is a harmless gateway to this story, if far from an adequate interpretation of it. There are elements to it that I quite like, such as the illustration of Buck’s feral calling being the shape of a black wolf reminiscent of the haunting yet alluring black rabbit of Watership Down; or even the addition of a personal drama in Thornton’s past to better endear his loneliness. It’s the kind of movie that is different enough in its story for this moment in time (while still playing into or adding a few well-worn contrivances), owing to its source material that it might leave an impression on some children -hopefully one that will draw them to the original Call of the Wild, still probably the finest dog story ever written. Which is fairly faint praise I know, but is about as much as can be mustered for a well-meaning but totally vacant dog movie that has no dog.
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