African Cats
Eleven year old animal-loving daughter having a sleepover. Wife who wants to go see Waterboarded Elephants, something I'm not about to do. So I get the Cats and the kids. Better than Waterhead Elephants I figure.
So about the African Cats, a Disney wildlife production.
Imagine an episode of Wild Kingdom.
Not take away Marlin Perkins. Take away Jim and the unintentional comedy he provided.
Now give names to all the animals in the production. Lions named Mara, Fang, Layla and Kali. A cheetah named Sita.
Now stretch it out to 90 minutes.
Now give Samuel L. Jackson the task of reading an over the top script that overdramatizes and over emotes. There are no snakes on these motherfucking plains, but Sam ramps it up anyway.
Now add one of the worst movie scores you can imagine. Sam is over the top. Way over. But the music? Completely distracting, overly tense, overly dramatic, utterly annoying.
Once all that gets rolling, commence yawning.
The visuals, the cinematography is stunning. It's amazing that the crew was able to get that embedded in the world of these magnificent creatures. I've always marveled at the ability to get cameras into these locations to capture the interactions between the animals and their environment.
As a screensaver, this would be great. Picture after picture of beautiful animals (but somebody could perhaps CGI out all the flies).
In the end, though, the film tells us nothing. The "bad lion" wins. Some cats survive, some don't (and we don't care). We're not breaking any new ground here. It's pretty, but that's all. It can't overcome the lack of story, the cloying score and Sam's "do they speak English in what?" narration.
On the plus side, there was a long trailer for Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides in the previews. May 20. I will be lining up for that one. Love Captain Jack.
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