The Call of the Wild (2020) - A missed occasion - 6/10 (19/06/21)

The Call of the Wild is an adventure movie based upon Jack London's novel of the same name. It revolves around a crossbreed dog named Buck who lives in an elegant mansion in California. The dog eventually gets abducted and shipped to the Yukon aboard a freighter. In the North, Buck first works for a friendly couple who delivers letters across the isolated territory. Up next, he is forced to work for an inexperienced and mean-spirited gold prospector and only narrowly escapes death. He ends up living with a recluse named John Thornton who has to battle some demons of his past before returning to civilization. In this isolated world, Buck finds a place called home when befriending a pack of wolves. However, the evil gold prospector is aggressively going after Buck and John Thornton which leads to a tense finale.

The movie misses a few occasions to be more than an average family-friendly production. First of all, it's quite obvious that Buck and several other animals aren't real but animated characters that look surprisingly outdated by contemporary standards. The film would have been much more authentic if it had used shots of actual animals with more precision, patience and care.

Up next, the film is filled with artificial visual effects. That's a shame because the landscapes in the Yukon are truly stunning and would have made for stunning shots that are much more convincing than exchangeable locations and computer graphics.

The movie's saving grace is the swift plot and its different characters that entertain from start to finish. Especially children and young teenagers might find the dynamic movie quite entertaining. As for older teenagers and adults however, the film is at times predictable and even stereotypical.

At the end of the day, The Call of the Wild is an average adventure movie that should please younger audiences. Older teenagers and especially adults can however stay away from this film that offers as many flaws as strengths. The movie is overall overrated as there are multiple similar adventure movies that are much more convincing and memorable.