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<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nThe\nfilm, based on the classic novel by Jack London, follows a dog named Buck from\nhis spoiled life in California to his dognapping and sale into service to his\nstint as a sled dog under a determined mailman (Omar Sy) to his role as a\ncompanion to grizzled loner John Thornton (Harrison Ford). The \u201cspoiled\u201d\nportion is full of predictable dog hijinks. He\u2019s told not to eat food off the\npicnic table, but then he walks up to his owner (Bradley Whitford) with a\ndrumstick in his mouth, and you know he\u2019s eaten food off the picnic table. I\nknow this sounds horrible to say, but I was glad when Buck got dognapped so\nthis could no longer be a \u201cdog eats food off the picnic table\u201d movie. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Buck\nis shipped to the Arctic, and cruelly taught obedience by a guy with a club\nthat Buck frankly seems perfectly capable of taking. He learns the value of\nteamwork while helping to pull the mailman\u2019s sled, so much so that he eventually\nreplaces the power-hungry lead dog and helps the mailman be on time for the\nfirst time ever. Then he\u2019s sold to arrogant fortune hunter Hal (Dan Stevens), who\nwants him for a trek to a legendary river of gold, even though the guy seems\nincapable of forging even the tamest of streams. Thornton rescues Buck from the\nvillain and the two go off on adventure of their own, where Buck struggles to\nfight the temptation (\u201ccall\u201d if you will) to run off with a pack of fellow\ncanines. It turns out that the two are camping at the site of the very river Hal\nwanted to find, and he tracks them down for a confrontation, even though our\nheroes braved an arduous journey and Hal has been established as terrible traveler\nin a plot hole I\u2019m not willing to overlook. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Whatever\nproblems there may be with the script (and don\u2019t blame London, Hal doesn\u2019t\nenjoy such longevity in the book), they\u2019re nothing compared to the problems\nwith the very look of Buck. It\u2019s not like he\u2019s \u201canimated\u201d in the traditional\nsense, he\u2019s rendered using motion capture technology. Let\u2019s say the movie wants\nBuck and Harrison Ford in the same scene, one where Ford talks to the animal.\nForget having Ford talk to a real dog or even a blank space where a dog will be\nadded later. He has to talk to a guy wearing a highly sophisticated motion\ncapture suit for a movie set in the 19th<\/sup> century. Ford actually\npulls it off, it\u2019s the visual effects that fail. Motion capture is great for\nfantastical creatures, but the technology hasn\u2019t yet reached the point where I\ncan look at a motion capture dog and recognize it as an actual dog. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There\nare actually a number of positive elements to \u201cThe Call of the Wild\u201d: Buck\u2019s\njourney is compelling, the scenery is beautiful, Sy is affable in his role, and\nFord gives a dignified performance. But it\u2019s all undone by the fundamental\ntruth that the dog looks phony. I suppose it could be worse. Buck could be\ndesigned to look like an animal\/human actor hybrid, but I don\u2019t see any\nnon-musical being dumb enough to do that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Grade: C<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe Call of the Wild\u201d is rated PG\nfor some violence, peril, thematic elements and mild language. Its running time\nis 100 minutes. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Bob Garver Last week in my \u201cSonic the Hedgehog\u201d review, I lamented that the title character was a cleaned-up cartoon rather than the \u201crealistic\u201d CGI abomination we were… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":46055,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46054"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}