Wild Thing Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.5
Audio		2.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.5

Wild Thing Blu-ray Movie Review

The Dark Tarzan Rises.

Reviewed by Martin Liebman July 23, 2015

What happens when one takes Tarzan and turns him into a poor man's (literally) Batman and plops him in the grimy, corrupted, crime-riddled streets of New York City, not dissimilar from the landscape seen in Death Wish? The answer is Wild Thing, a bizarre, but in a good way, 1987 film from Director Max Reid (In the Eye of the Snake) that follows the exploits of a young homeless man who has taken up makeshift arms (a crude crossbow, a "gun" constructed of what looks like a simple bicycle air pump) against the city's worst (and its rat population...the hero kills, or scatters, quite a few of the buggers throughout the film) in his quest to avenge his parents' senseless murders and, apparently, rid New York of its unwanted four-legged rodents.

Remember.

A young family -- father, mother, son -- travels to New York City but the parents are murdered by two men, one of whom appears to be a police officer. The young boy escapes and is taken in by a kindly, but somewhat paranoid and senile, bag lady. She teaches him to distrust doctors ("white coats") and cops (blue coats), an idea only reinforced by his own experiences with "blue coats." She passes and he grows up to become an urban myth known as "Wild Thing" (Robert Knepper), a crude crime-fighter who stays hidden in the shadows. One day, he rescues a young woman named Jane (Kathleen Quinlan) from a rape-in-progress. The two form a powerful bond. As their relationship blossoms, Wild Thing draws ever closer to targeting the people responsible for his parents' deaths.

Indeed, the Caped Crusader's blood runs deep through the film's core; all that's missing, really, is a utility belt. And a few billion dollars. And a butler. And the Whirly-Bat. OK, maybe not the Whirly-Bat. But even in the absence of all of Batman's cool toys and endless stream of cash to finance them, there's no mistaking that the film's "Wild Thing" is essentially the same person at the very center of his essence, an orphaned superhero who does good but stays in the shadows, raised, even, by a surrogate parent figure, here not a sophisticated older gentleman but instead a homeless lady who may babble on about the world's unseen corruption and who's fully invested in the deepest, darkest conspiracy theories formed as much by her own misunderstanding of the world around her as anything else. Even still, she seems to have a good head on her shoulders, in her own sort of way. But other than the obvious Batman allusions, never mind the even more obvious Tarzan motifs (including a heroine named "Jane"), the real question beyond the mix-'n'-match novelty is whether the film proves capable of standing on its own once it gets down to the nitty-gritty details and the audience moves past the none-too-subtle winks and nods at play throughout.

The answer is "yes," generally. While no bastion of originality -- beyond meshing established elements, that is -- Wild Thing delivers a decent character study of an extreme example of humanity at its best and worst. "Wild Thing" is, essentially, a person with little understanding of the world around him, knowing what he knows only in the context of three things: his parents' murders, that which he sees but does not fully understand, and that which he learns from his surrogate mother but which he doesn't fully comprehend in any kind of broader "real-world" context. His life is as simple as it gets, built from the ground-up on the streets and through the prism of an odd isolation that hasn't kept him physically separated from the rest of the world, but surely emotionally and mentally separated from it. For example, "Wild Thing" understands the act of lovemaking between a man and a woman based solely on a single eyewitness account, failing to grasp its deeper significance and the connection beyond the physical that makes it work. His labels for people -- police and medical, for example -- are broad and fully-reaching, failing to understand that one corrupt "blue coat" or "white coat" does not equate to the entire population. It's a fascinating character study and a smart mixture of styles that removes Tarzan from the character's traditional physical environment and removes Batman's deeper understanding of the same physical environment. While the film doesn't do everything it could with the character -- the movie feels a little rushed, particularly in its third act -- it offers a satisfying exploration of the human condition from a fairly unique angle, even as it's pieced together from pre-established characters and themes.

Wild Thing Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Wild Thing's 1080p transfer teeters on excellence but never plunges so low as to sink beyond "good." There's a hint of wear and tear, rarely more than a speck or two but enough to warrant a note. Grain is present throughout, spiking in darker scenes but generally presenting evenly and helping shape a positive film-quality image in well-lit exteriors. Those same bright outdoor shots offer some truly excellent detailing, particularly evident on many city landscapes including brick, concrete, and old bits of tattered and frayed clothes and items seen throughout the film. Colors are pleasantly robust and healthy. Clothing and graffiti stand apart as the main sources, and the most brilliant. Black levels waver just a bit, showing a bit of crush in spots but never going drastically pale on the other side of the equation. The transfer suffers from no egregious examples of edge enhancement or macroblocking, but a bit of noise does intrude from time to time. On the whole, however, this is a fairly impressive catalogue release for Olive Films.

Wild Thing Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Wild Thing's DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 lossless soundtrack satisfies general listening requirements but never stretches beyond. The track feels consistently crammed, imaging towards the middle and never stretching, neither for music nor for city atmospherics, both of which provide serviceably clear detailing but never the rich, lifelike transparency found in the best tracks. Some third act action -- gunfire, several crashes -- prove adequately robust. Dialogue is delivered with sustained clarity and center-focused placement.

Wild Thing Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This Blu-ray release of Wild Thing contains no bonus content. The main menu only offers selections for "Play" and "Chapters."

Wild Thing Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Wild Thing isn't particularly original when one considers its pieces, but it does offer a fairly original mash-up that yields an interesting, if not somewhat underdeveloped, character study. The movie is nicely acted and robustly constructed, hardly a classic but an interesting little slice of somewhat obscure cinema that's worth a watch. Olive Films' Blu-ray release of Wild Thing features solid video and mediocre audio. No extras are included. Recommended as a purchase at a good sale price.