Starring: Harrison Ford, Dan Stevens, Omar Sy, Karen Gillan
Distributor: Twentieth Century Fox
Runtime: 100 mins. Reviewed in Feb 2020
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This American adventure movie is based loosely on the 1903 Jack London classic novel of the same name, and on the subsequent 1935 film of the same name by Director, William Wellman. London’s book has been translated to the cinema screen multiple times. The 1935 version starred Clark Gable and Loretta Young and is the best known of the movies that have preceded this one.
In the film, a huge St Bernard – Scotch Collie dog is stolen from his California home and sold to work in the Yukon, which is a province in Canada. The dog comes across a man called John Thornton (Harrison Ford) and they embark on an adventure in the Wild together. The film is set in the province of Yukon in the 1890s, around the time of the Klondike Gold Rush. The Yukon is appropriately described in the film as “a dangerous place” which the film compellingly reinforces.
The central character of the film, as in the original novel, is a dog named Buck. The movie is Hollywood’s most sophisticated adaptation of London’s original novel. This is a live action/computer-animated film, and Buck is portrayed realistically by using the contemporary photographic technique of motion-capture technology. The film itself is an extreme change of pace for Harrison Ford, who is the accomplished veteran actor of the Star Wars and Indiana Jones film series, and of “Blade Runner 2049” (2017). Famous adventure films have cemented Ford’s professional reputation, and this is the only time he has shared star billing with a dog.
Buck is a pampered pet of a rich judge in California’s Santa Clara Valley. One day, the judge’s gardener, in desperate need of money, steals him and sells him for good money. Buck is sold to work as a sled dog in Northern Canada, and ends up in a team of mail-delivery dogs in icy Canadian terrain. Shipped to the far North, Buck is abused and beaten but not broken and eventually becomes the leader of the pack. Forced to survive in a harsh environment, Buck emerges as pack leader through strength, size, and resilience.
Meeting the demands of being a trusted sled dog, and enduring poor treatment, Buck bonds to Thornton, who is hunting for gold in the region. When Thornton cuts Buck loose to save the animal from maltreatment and an icy death, a strong bond is established between them that steadily grows. Buck’s devotion to Thornton, becomes total. Despite his devotion, however, Buck is pulled away from civilisation, which Thornton represents, by “The Call of the Wild”.
The pull of the Wild grows stronger as Buck and his master work side by side together in the isolation of the Canadian forest and waterways. While Thornton continues his search for gold, he is attacked while Buck is away, and Buck returns to his master’s camp-site to find that his master is dying. Buck seeks vengeance, and executes it, before returning to the Wild to become a feared figure – coming back every year to mourn the place where his beloved master died.
Responding to the call of the Wild, Buck finally breaks free of potential captors and becomes a legend in the Klondike. The movie captures the scenic wilderness of Northern Canada; its use of motion-capture technology is impressive though a little loose, and hectic, making dogs at times more human than anyone else around. Harrison Ford narrates, as well as acts as Buck’s master.
It is hard not to interpret this movie as offering anything but a strong statement on the need to respect the environment and the animals that inhabit it – which maybe is why Harrison Ford took a lead role, behind Buck. In voice and action, the film is entirely supportive of the need to protect the environment and effectively communicates the dangers and beauty that it can deliver.
Harrison Ford dies in the film, so there will be no sequel. This movie is an environment-friendly, animal-friendly adventure story that communicates serious messages for threatening times, and, with Buck’s help, it targets audiences that like dogs to be as human as possible.
Peter W. Sheehan is Associate of the Australian Catholic Office for Film and Broadcasting
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