Movie Review: The Wolf and the Lion (Le loup et le lion)

 

Michael's Movie Grade: C+

A sweet little family movie. 

In many ways this film resembles those live action Disney animal movies from the 1960's and 70's. Everyone is there to see the animals (who really shine) and the human characters are there mostly to move the story along. This is not to say the human characters are terrible. They are perfectly serviceable. There is no depth or nuance to these characters, but they are quite likable and keep you caring about what happens in the story. Still the real charm here is the animals. The end credits assure us that the lion and the wolf are great friends in real life as well as the film. However even if that was left out, movie audiences could certainly tell that this is true. It is weird to say that two animal actors have great chemistry, but they really do here. There is something so charming and irresistible about seeing these two unlikely friends share the screen that even the most persistent cynic may find themselves smiling during these scenes. The adventure these animals go on in this film while familiar is also very charming in the same way as in those Disney films I mentioned earlier. Surprisingly even some of the scenes with the humans present us with a decent story, even if they can't hold a candle to the animals. While this all may be familiar there is a reason that these ideas get repeated and that is because they are really charming. 

Where this movie really struggles is with dialogue. Most of it is very clumsy and forced here. Because of this the human characters rarely sound like real people. There are times when you can tell the actors are trying their best with this dialogue, but they simply cannot make it sound natural. This movie also has a message about animal rights and as you can probably guess from my comments about the dialogue this is not well handled. Too much of this message can be found in heavy handed and overly preachy dialogue that does not sound like anything a person would ever say. While not every message in a movie needs to be subtle an audience never has to be beat over the head with it the way this movie does. Also, I know it may sound like a weird complaint but the show the circus had with the lion was lame and I can't imagine anyone paying to see it. 

This movie is not a new classic by any means, but it does have a charm to it that makes it worth seeing.