6.8 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Buck is a big-hearted dog whose blissful domestic life gets turned upside down when he is suddenly uprooted from his California home and transplanted to the exotic wilds of the Alaskan Yukon in the 1890s. As the newest rookie on a mail-delivery dog sled team, Buck experiences the adventure of a lifetime as he ultimately finds his true place in the world.
Starring: Harrison Ford, Omar Sy, Cara Gee, Dan Stevens, Bradley WhitfordFamily | 100% |
Adventure | 97% |
Drama | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
French (Canada): Dolby Digital 5.1
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1
English SDH, French, Spanish
Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
Digital copy
DVD copy
Slipcover in original pressing
Region free
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 5.0 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 1.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
W.C. Fields may or may not have actually uttered the famous aphorism about never working with animals and children, but one might still wonder if the warning, whoever may have said it, could hold equally true for CGI creations. This latest film version of Jack London’s immortal The Call of the Wild is the first ostensible live action feature from director Chris Sanders, who first rose to fame in the world of animation courtesy of such efforts as Lilo & Stitch, The Croods and How to Train Your Dragon, but he hasn’t completely forsaken any computer aided visuals with regard to this particular outing, since the real “star” of this film (as opposed to marquee headliner Harrison Ford) is a CGI canine called Buck (Terry Notary was the "Andy Serkis" of this production, playing Buck with a motion capture suit that was later animated). The Call of the Wild has been variously adapted for either the small or large screen going back to the days of the silents, but perhaps because those efforts didn’t have the ability to offer computer generated pups, the screenwriters may have tended to concentrate on the human side of the story at least as much if not more so than the dog’s tale (sorry), even though London’s source novel indubitably was Buck’s story — the humans only entered the fray courtesy of their relationships to him, not vice versa. In that regard, at least, this version hews quite a bit closer to its source, but the focal star’s believability may be up for debate with some viewers. That said, and per the maybe misattributed quote from Fields above, when Buck is on the screen he becomes the inevitable eye magnet, and whatever humans there may be in the frame with him can tend to fade into the background a lot of the time.
The Call of the Wild is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Disney/Buena Vista and 20th Century Studios* with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in
2.39:1. The film was shot using the Alexa 65 (the closing credits list this camera) and the IMDb states everything was finished at a 4K DI. Aside from
sometimes questionable looking CGI, this is a very sharp and appealing transfer that offers consistently very good to excellent detail and fine detail
levels. Reactions to the "believability" of the various CGI animals will be a matter of opinion, of course, but the rendering here typically looks nicely
sharp and well detailed in terms of things like fur and facial expressions. The practical props and sets offer a wealth of fine detail in elements like
fabrics and even some of the paper items that Perrault delivers. While the brightly lit outdoor moments understandably pop the best, some of the blue
graded nighttime sequences offer a surprisingly good amount of detail.
*In one of those fun synchronicities that history sometimes offer us, this is the first film released under Disney's rebranding of 20th Century Fox as
20th Century Studios (you'd think they'd hang on to the Fox moniker rather than a time specific name that's already out of date, but I digress).
Interestingly, the 1935 Call of the Wild was the first film
under the then new partnership between 20th Century and Fox that created 20th Century Fox. For those interested in what the new masthead looks
like, I've included an extra screenshot of it in position 21 (no meta pun intended, considering what century we're in).
The Call of the Wild features a DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 mix that is excellent and consistently immersive, but which I'm scoring at a 4.5 in order to give me a little "room" (height or otherwise) for the 4K UHD presentation's Dolby Atmos track. Surround activity is evident throughout the presentation, starting with the whistling winds that envelop the listener before the film actually even begins, and the continuing with a glut of nicely place ambient environmental effects that help to realistically evoke the great outdoors. There are some sudden bursts of LFE in the presentation, including courtesy of some of Buck's rambunctious behavior early in the film, but also in terms of later moments like the avalanche or a scene where Buck and Thornton ride the rapids of a river. Dialogue and John Powell's nice score are all presented cleanly and clearly on this problem free track.
If you're a dog lover, The Call of the Wild is sure to hit an emotional bull's eye. Those with a more jaundiced view about CGI animals interacting with human actors may have a slightly less favorable reaction, but the film still provides some lovely scenery and a briskly told story with a distinctive focus. Technical merits are first rate, and The Call of the Wild comes Recommended.
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Ultimate Collector's Edition
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