The Call of the Wild Reviews

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since it was starring Harrison Ford and since it was available on Disney+, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, to be honest, I didn’t know much about this story before watching this movie and I was at first surprised that the main character was not the one played by Harrison Ford but some kind of CGI version of Beethoven (the dog, not the German composer). Seriously, even though this dog was technically well made, I never really got used to the damned thing. I mean, considering the dangerous situations he was involved with, you wonder how they could have shot this movie with a real dog (they actually did it with another version made back in the 90’s with Rutger Hauer playing Harrison Ford’s role). However, the main issue with the CGI approach was that they really pushed as much as possible his ability to tell his feelings and thoughts without actually having him speak (Thank God they didn’t him make him speak… that would have been truly awful). However, as a result, this dog displayed way more facial expression than your average dog and it did make him look really fake, I’m afraid. And, yet, I have to admit that the damned animal still grew on me at some point. Indeed, I haven’t read Jack London’s book but his adventures turned out to be actually fairly entertaining. Finally, the idea of a dog going back to wilderness might sound romantic but, since I’m not a huge fan of the whole pet concept, there was something quite appealing about the idea. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, it was still a decent watch and, if you can stand this fake*ss dog, it is actually worth a look.