The Call of the Wild - Movie Review
(English translation below)
•[日本語] とてもいい感じに歳をとっているハリスンフォード出演の犬映画。彼目当でわざわざ映画館で見たっていうのもある。最近の動物映画は、お客さんを泣かせるのがゴールって感じなのがいっぱいあるから、だいぶ心配だったが、そこら辺はぜんぜん問題なかった。”リロ&ステッチ”、”ヒックとドラゴン”, “クルードさん”などを手掛けてきたクリスサンダース監督にはやっぱり期待できた。
最初の話はたしかに犬が心を持っている飼い主に対しての感じ方などが描かれていて、たしかに重要ではあったが、最後の方のハリスンフォードと犬の関係の話の進みが、慌ただしいっていうのは感じた。そして、動物に凶暴な悪役はDisney映画には似合ってそうだが、せっかくのムードをぶち壊す傾向がありほぼいらない。
1番の問題点はやはり...犬がCGすぎて感情移入がしずらかったこと。映画の大半は、撮影のロケーションも含めCGで合成されてるのだが、雰囲気作りの合成はぜんぜんよかったのだが、犬の見た目が嘘くさくてもう少し上手くリアル感をだせただろうと思う。
•[ENG] Harrison Ford, well-aged with awesome fluffy grey hair, is the main reason why I watched the film at the cinema. Although I kinda feared that this movie might be just as much crap as other recent dog or animal films, just trying to make us emotional in an obvious way, this film was actually good! - thanks to the great director, Chris Sanders (well known for Lilo & Stitch, The Croods, and How to Train Your Dragon)
The first act where Ford barely shows up could’ve been slightly shorter in my opinion. It’s got some important stuff to show us in order to tell us about the dog’s feelings toward his owners but then the final act where Ford and the dog mainly interacts felt a bit rushed. Also, the fairly annoying antagonist who could be in some Disney films was in my opinion quite irrelevant, doing really nothing but just to kill the entire mood.
The main issue that I really hated was that the film heavily relied on CGI, especially these dogs apparently looked so fake despite the massive budget. I didn’t really mind the looks of each location which was also recreated by computer but they definitely could’ve put more effort into making animals look real. Because of that, I couldn’t really invest myself into the story, albeit emotional elements there.
