Strange Wilderness

I have read a lot of negative reviews about this movie. I'd have to say that they are 100% correct. I have also read some reviews by people who absolutely loved it. They are also 100% correct. I tend to be more toward the second group, but I can definitely see both sides.

The plot makes no sense. The dialogue is at times very bad. However (a very big however), I think that this movie knows its audience and delivers to them a light-hearted "stoner" movie with some very funny moments (the shark voice-overs, for example). This is a Happy Madison movie. Yes, times have changed from Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore (two of the originals, no doubt). However, I think that many people go into these types of movies expecting something more "mainstream," such as Wedding Crashers or 40-Year-Old Virgin. The sure absurdity of the movie was enough for me. Much of the dialogue, albeit very goofy, has a certain improv feel to it, letting the actors play with the scenes.

To end this long "review," think of movies like Beerfest, Super Troopers, Grandma's Boy for a quick comparison. Does this movie win any awards? Absolutely not. Is it probably better on DVD? Perhaps. However, if these laugh-aloud "stoner" movies are your thing, then I think you'll enjoy this movie.

Strange Wilderness is a good, if not particularly memorable, stoner comedy revolving around a young slacker (Steve Zahn) who inherits a wildlife television show from his father. Unfortunately, he and his stoner buddies manage to get the show canceled, and their only hope is to get footage of Bigfoot down in Ecuador.

Sound stupid? Well, it is, but it still manages to get a lot of laughs, even if they are not particularly original. Some of the highlights, such as a dentally challenged shark, are well known from YouTube, but there are still plenty of laughs to be had, including a scene involving a decidedly ferocious turkey. The whole thing is held together by Steve Zahn, whose charisma makes even many of the lamer jokes funny.

The film definitely has flaws. Many of the jokes, particularly in the first half, fall flat, and Jonah Hill does little with his character other than act stoned. Furthermore, many of the jokes are easy to predict in advance. Still, it's a great comedy for a boring afternoon.

If you liked Talladega Nights, you will definitely like this one. Very funny stoner movie.

The ending isn't really my taste, a bit on the repulsive side, but overall this movie is hysterically funny. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The comedic timing is perfect, really nicely done production quality overall, and the musical score is fantastic. Nicely paced, didn't really have any draggy parts. The movie is a really good "dood" comedy. I have been recommending it to my friends already. I might not fit the demographic the film is aimed at, but I loved the movie. I love funny stuff and this film split my gut several times. It's a good time.

The movie starts out with outtakes of genuine wildlife show legend, Bill Burrid, getting picked on by an ostrich, and knocked down by goats. I loved watching his show when I was a kid, so right off the bat, I was in love with the movie, curious about the story, and wanted to see where it was going to go.

The humor and dialogue push the envelope of stupidity, but actually has an intelligent edge. That's why it reminds me of Talladega Nights in terms of comedic dialogue style. The movie is silly, but not stupid. This film puts the "Fun" back in "Funny".

The film crew is just a bunch of misfits that get along great. They go in search of Bigfoot, in an attempt to keep it on the air. Murphy's Law is in full swing, in a very funny way throughout the film.

Target market is teen & 20-something males.

Very uplifting, and randomly hilarious film. It's definitely not an A+ as far as the plot goes, (not uncommon in the comedy genre), however, the funny one liners, outstanding acting from Justin long (the guy who stared in accepted) who in this movie plays a brain dead stoner PERFECTLY, and the random humor, which requires an above average sense of humor, but which kept me laughing out loud the entire movie, are more than enough to classify this film as a "I'm really glad I watched that movie" ...movie. :D . Heres a list of comedies I enjoyed. perhaps we have similar taste. Anchor man, Napolean Dynamite (kind-of), Billy Madison, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Bio Dome, Knocked Up. etc.

There is only one plot line I can extract from my experience watching Strange Wilderness. It is mildly about a wilderness animal TV show hosted by a guy named Peter Gaulke (Steve Zahn). He and his demented crew (Allen Covert, Jonah Hill, Ashley Scott, Justin Long e.t.c.) find out that the ratings for their 3 A.M. show have dropped drastically. They have two weeks before their show gets the boot, and they have to find a way to keep it on the air. Peter's friend Milas (Ernest Borgnine...Making a quick cha-ching) suggests he knows where Bigfoot lives within the Andes wild, so the team decides to track the mysterious creature as a last hope to save the show. While on the road they run into one ludicrous obstacle after another, but keep going anyway. That really just about wraps it up in the "plot" department.

Strange Wilderness is an awful film in reality. The plot is thinner than a microscopic germ, the acting is either drug-induced or just absolutely atrocious with no real effort (I'm leaning towards drug-induced). The film itself is tastelessly shot in any possible way. They were in the wilderness for 90% of the film, they could have thrown in at least a few nice artsy shots of trees or something, but I guess that was a no-no. And don't even get me started on the continuity because there is virtually no continuity to critique. What other negative things can I say about Strange Wilderness. Oh that's right, how in the world could I forget this big detail, the filmmakers sure did. Strange Wilderness does not seem to have a script. Instead the actors seem to sit around after being told a basic outline of what to talk about. Then they just ad-lib away until the scene is over, and most of that screen time they don't follow that basic outline in any way imaginable. If there was any sort of script to this movie, I'm guessing Jack Daniels or Captain Morgan wrote it. Who knows maybe somebody dropped a lit joint on the screenplay and it went up in flames, and everyone around was too high to do a rewrite.

But Strange Wilderness was funny at times, there I said it. Despite all the horrendous effort that went into making this flimsy far-below-low-brow comedy, it was the actors having "high" and mighty fun that made the film watchable. Justin Long for instance is at his worst here as a one dimensional stoner, but he still manages to give us a few chuckles just because of how random and stupid he is acting on screen. There is one funny scene in which he has tattooed eyes on his eyelids, and the team wakes him up from sleeping and he scares all of them. Although the tattoos were magically gone in the next scene, I guess Justin Long must have found them in a box of cracker jacks and suggested it as a gag. Steve Zahn is a very talented actor with movies like Joy Ride, Rescue Dawn, and even You've Got Mail. But in Strange Wilderness he too is at his seemingly deliberate worst. As the host of a wilderness TV show his character Peter is bad, as is the show where you can actually hear Steve Zahn stutter and pause as he thinks of what to say next. The half-assed ad-libbing is hilarious. I've never seen a movie with as little effort as Strange Wilderness, and because everyone involved doesn't try to hide that fact we can actually laugh at the film.

Steve Zahn, Justin Long, Jonah Hill, and even Ernest Borgnine were most likely all stoned in the making of this movie. This movie was probably shot for their own amusement and then somehow made its way into movie theaters. I don't know how they got that accomplished, but I guess the Happy Madison crew have their ways. The movie is very bad but I would prefer it any day of the week before I ever watched dreck like Epic Movie or Meet the Spartans again. At least this movie had a few fine actors having a stoned good time. In the end I give Strange Wilderness a 1.5 out of 4 because it is an awful film. But for a one time viewing it was a little amusing in a half-assed way.