Movies based upon books can be challenging to adapt to screen, to many references and it gets bogged down, to few and it feels like a cheap version, having never read the book that the movie is based upon, I went in completely fresh to it, but without a link was it a successful movie, the answer is hard to explain.

The Call of the Wild tells the story of Buck, a dog that lives a happy life, before it is taken away from him, due to some greedy folks and the demands from the Alaskan frontier. The opening moments of the film clearly show Buck getting into all sorts of mischief and mostly getting away with it, thanks to his owner being the town Judge, but the carefree life he knows is quickly snatched away from him and Buck finds himself being shipped up north. On the journey, Buck discovers that not all men are equal as he is beaten into submission, but after a while, he breaks free and escapes confinement, only to discover he is far from home and somewhere very cold. From there, Buck goes on an extraordinary adventure, which will likely be familiar to those who have read the books, for those that haven’t, I won’t spoil it now. The story is charming, and Buck is quite the character, but his wonder for exploration is tapered by the humans that he interacts with, the problem with them is that by the time we know who they are, they are gone, leaving Buck to start over again.

Therein lies the issue with the movie, everything feels all over the place, from the tone, to the characters, they can be light-hearted one moment, and serious and depressing the next and for a movie that seems to be aimed at kids, that is not a good thing at all. The opening 20 minutes can best showcase this, we go from goofball moments, to kidnapping and beating and back to goofball, with a touch of kidnapping, it is odd. Tonal shifts are not something I am opposed to, when they are used correctly, but this is not done here, they are way to wild, leaving you struggling to enjoy or digest, what you have just seen. Going from light-hearted to serious and back again so frequently, means that the emotions they are trying to evoke will bounce around like a tennis ball at the Australian Open.

The same swinging back and forth applies to Buck, a dog who is so CGI he borders both sides of the uncanny valley in his looks. There are times when he looks and behaves like a real dog, just the size of a small horse, these moments are fun and showcase off the animation, but the flip side is when they make his reactions and expressions just a little too human. Dogs have this tendency, especially if they are trouble, of using their eyes to express their sadness and while this is done here, there are a few times when the eyes feels less like a dogs and more like a humans, which highlights the other side of the problem. The times when they need Buck to do things, that a dog might normally do, he ends up feeling like a man in a dog suit, rather than a dog and again, if done right, person in a suit is not bad, but with the end result here, it seems they forgot to remove the human from the animation all the time.

Speaking of humans, there are only a handful of ones that Buck interacts with on any significant level and the one he spends the longest with is Harrisons Ford’s character, John Thorton, though the first few times that they do cross paths, it is just that, crossing paths. Other characters like Omar Sy’s Perrault or Françoise are solid additions to the cast, and both evolve, in the slight time that they have Buck with them. While Perrault is optimistic from the get-go, Françoise, is not, but after certain events happen, she warms up to Buck, the problem is it is very soon after they all come together, they are broken apart, not only leaving Buck alone, but leaving the audience wondering where things are heading. We are soon introduced to perhaps the biggest villain of the movie, Hal, played by Dan Stevens and while the character can be mean and a little terrifying, he comes across more as a cartoon villain, just without the evil moustache twirling. Things soon take a darker turn, darker than anything that has happened before and the story really gets going, but there was an issue I had with that, the pacing just felt off and it is a real issue with the movie overall, there is very little sense of time, there is only a few mentions of days or time at all and one about the season. Now passage of time is something that means a great deal in a movie, without it the weight of a choice can have no impact, thinking back on it, I couldn’t tell you if the movie takes place over 8 months or 8 years, which feels like it renders things obsolete.

The Call of the Wild is a good movie, the animation on Buck and the other animals is top notch, but the vistas that the movie shows, are filled with the same amount of detail as well. The humans in the movie all play their roles well, but they all feel short lived on the screen, with one particular actor wasted in their bit. The movies biggest problem is that it swings from one extreme to the other, it is full of heart most of the time, but with how dark it can get, it is not a movie for little kids, even if it looks it. Because the movie bounces back and forth, I can’t suggest it to many people, those who have read the book, or seen any number of the previous adaptations, will likely enjoy this new take, but for those coming in new, go in prepared to be confused.

Early viewing was made possible by 20th Century Studios