REVIEW - "Strange Wilderness" (2008)

A few months ago I had a conversation with a friend of mine about how so many movies get released yearly. An average of 500 movies get released every year and the number is slowly climbing. It was noted by my friend that 450 of them are pure crap and 25 of them are only “slightly crappy.” This puts the remaining 25 films in the “good movie” category. Last year I saw 41 movies. Out of that number I gave half of those films a decent to good rating. So I suppose my friend is pretty close to the truth. I mention this because “Strange Wilderness” is so bad that it begs me to rethink this ratio of good to bad films. It has hit me that, out of 500 movies released in a single year, 25 are good, 25 are “slightly crappy,” 400 are complete crap and the final 50 are so bad that they should receive an NC-17 rating for simply existing. “Strange Wilderness” rests in that last category. As overwrought as this opening paragraph has been I hope this explains just how atrocious this “movie” is. If that’s not enough, read further.

I don’t want to explain the plot in too much detail so I’ll keep my synopsis as short as it should be. A wildlife television series is on the verge of being cancelled, so a group of over-the-top characters set out to film Big Foot and revitalize the show. Okay, I’m done.

The movie focuses on how absurd the characters act and doesn’t bother to be consistent in any form. It’s a comedy with “stupid humor,” is what the defenders of this movie will tell you. Well that makes me feel better! I was afraid I might actually have to watch a movie with “smart humor.” I suppose a movie that has so much fun using the name “Dick” to get a laugh out of people who find the irony in a man’s name being the same as the derogatory term for the male sex organ could be considered smart if it weren’t aimed at such a feebleminded audience. I’ll admit it, if someone makes a smart joke that includes a penis I’ll laugh. But if someone says the word “penis” and expects that alone to make me laugh they’ve got another thing coming. This is the epitome of “Strange Wilderness:” A turkey bites a character's love muscle and we’re suppose to laugh. A whole bus full of characters gets high and we are to chuckle at their actions. A fat guy is randomly wearing a thong under his pants and we’re called to give a giggle. I may have laughed twice at the whole movie and it wasn’t at anything I just listed.

I understand that there are some people in the world that are immature enough to laugh at this crap, but this reality frightens me. The movie does not aspire to be anything more than garbage. As I watched the incoherent scenes flash by, I realized that this movie was produced to be the cinematic equivalent of rat feces. It wants to be a stupid movie for stupid people.

What surprises me even more is how the producers got talents like Steve Zahn and Justin Long in this movie. Long hardly has any lines and Zahn-- He proved he is far above this trite in “Rescue Dawn.” Why do they need this movie? They can do much better. These guys weren’t capable of keeping me interested in any aspect of the movie. When the best shots of the movie are of the mindlessly inserted Ashley Scott you know something is very, very, very wrong.

As I write this I’m watching the trailer for the film on YouTube. What sells this movie in the previews is the highly praised talking shark scene, but by the time this happened in the actual movie I was too angry to laugh. It was not just money that was put to waste, but time out of my life that I really wish I could get back. I just hope the people who actually enjoyed this movie don’t reproduce. We don’t need those genes spreading. We don’t need more of these movies. And I don’t need to listen to my roommate ever again when he tells me, “We’re going to see –insert title of any movie he wants to see here- tonight.”

0 out of ****