Movie Thoughts: Call of the Wild (2009)

• Released: 12 June 2009
• Directed by: Richard Gabai
• Running time: 1 h 28 min
• Rating 3/5

Synopsis

A girl stays at her grandfather's place and befriends a feral wolfdog named Buck.

My Thoughts

If you're looking for a faithful adaptation of the Jack London story, you won't get it here. Despite the title and the main wolfdog being one named Buck, it is only loosely connected to the book other than some similar elements like dogsledding. The story is brought up several times, and the main dog is named after Buck from the book, but other than that there's not much similarities.

A pampered city girl is brought to the snowy wilderness of Montana to stay with her grandfather who grew lonely after the passing of his wife and her grandma. There, she grows to love nature and animals as she takes care of a low content wolfdog that ended up at her grandfather's doorstep. A bad man is set on getting the hybrid (now named Buck), and finally it comes down to a race being the deciding factor in who gets to have the animal.

Just a pretty by-the-books sled dog movie that of course has to have a race as climax. It has quite a bit of bad child acting and the like, but it's not horrible or anything. I didn't watch this in 3D because red-cyan glasses are a pain.

I just thought Main Girl was kind of an obnoxious character (she even lies to her grandfather in order to get to keep the wolfdog) and not much really stood out about it to separate it from any other sled-dog movie out there. I'm glad with the conclusion that Buck got to stay in Montana, though.

Also what kind of magic touch does Main Girl have when she can save an animal that was dying and going to be put down the night before and then have it be completely fine like nothing happened the next day. What's up with that.