Movie Thoughts: Call of the Wild (1996)

• Released: 1 May 1996
• Directed by: Laura Shepherd
• Running time: 45 min
• Rating 1.5/5

Synopsis

A pampered shepherd dog named Buck is taken north to become a sled dog, while a boy named John Thornton comes to Skagway to look for gold to pay off his sister's operation costs.

My Thoughts

Ah, yes, Goodtimes Entertainment. Not one of my favorite studios, with all their cheap knockoff movies, but I do have a soft spot for at least two of theirs (Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer: The Movie and White Fang). But I always missed out on their Call of the Wild adaptation. Until now, that is.

The story, while loosely based on the movie, takes a lot of creative liberties. Thornton isn't an adult man Buck befriends late into the story, but instead a boy who instantly befriends the dog before he arrives in the cold north. Hal, Mercedes, Charles and Perrault are completely left out. The villain is instead a man named Burton, probably an expy from the Red Sweather guy in the book. Buck also already felt his urges to run free and wild back when he was in California, when in the book he only had these instincts awaken when he spent enough time up north. 

The art style in this one is one I kind of like. Not all of the designs, mind you, but it has this very angular thing going on, that definitely makes it look a bit unique at least. Some dogs like Buck and Spitz also have neat designs, but others look painfully generic (See: Woof). The animation was decent sometimes, but sloppy a lot of times, too. It's honestly nothing great. Just standard cheap direct-to-video stuff. I did like the backgrounds, that had a similar sharp but also lineless style and distinct color palette going on.

One thing that was obnoxious about this movie (the godawful songs aside), was the lack of engaging conflict. Seriously, all of them can be solved by a single pounce, and the enemy will back off. It happens so many times and it's just really annoying. I get that they can't show Buck mauling someone, but damn, at least have him fight like a dog. Now he just constantly knocks into people and then they instantly back off. Fight scenes end as soon as they start.

The stuff with John's father literally disappearing is also weird. Then, after that, he gets some religious epiphany when a native American spirit (Malteca I think they were called? I couldn't find anything on them, though) comes to him and shows him the way and tells him he'll be well protected. It just feels really random and happens once and then is never really brought up again. John also hardly even grieves his father. 

The characters have nothing to them and are about as basic as you can get. Buck doesn't even really have that much development, since he wanted to be wild even back when he was down south before he went through his sled dog training. 

So, yeah, this was just another bland movie probably made to cash-in on other sled-dog movies like Balto or something. It's not good, but at least has some kind of okay character designs going for it. That's about as much credit I'll give it, though.