DVD Review: An Elephant's Journey (2017)

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Alternate Title: Phoenix Wilder and The Great Elephant Adventure

Working as a writer, editor, producer, and director (oh my), when it comes to crafting tales of adventure that are suitable for the entire family, Richard Boddington is a veritable jack-of-all-trades.

Returning to the same Gary Paulsen-like premise of an unprepared child lost in nature that made his 2013 picture Against the Wild such a refreshing surprise, although An Elephant's Journey isn't as good as Wild, (which spawned a sequel), it's still sure to thrill young viewers graduating from animated adventures to live action stories with heroes their own age.

Grander in scope both in terms of its African setting as well as Boddington's decision to one-up the horse in Flicka or dog in Disney classics by giving his young lead, Phoenix (Sam Ashe Arnold) an elephant friend, as Journey begins, the recently orphaned Phoenix moves from Texas to Africa to live with his sweet-natured Aunt Sarah (Elizabeth Hurley).

Eager to explore his new surroundings by accompanying his Uncle Jack (Tertius Meintjes) on safari the very next day, after he gets distracted by a small animal during a short break, Phoenix is panicked to find that the parade of vehicles has left him behind.

Lost in the wilderness just twenty-four hours after setting foot on a new continent, while it requires a pretty big suspension-of-belief to imagine that Jack would've let him out of his sight long enough to get lost, Boddington makes the confusion more believable as the frightened Phoenix wanders further into the bush rather than simply staying by the side of the road until his uncle returns.

And as his guardians work alongside local military search and rescue to retrace their steps, Phoenix settles in for his first long night in a new land, only to find an unexpected ally a day later after he frees a bull elephant from a trap.

Both guarding Phoenix and giving him someone to talk to, the boy’s bond with the elephant he dubs Indlovu (which means "The Unstoppable") strengthens even more when they come across a group of ruthless poachers and vow to rescue the animals held captive in their camp.

While his ability to train Indlovu with an orange well enough to ride him to the level of a circus act is probably only going to work on the youngest audience members, the majestic blend of beautiful scenery and large animals freely roaming the land make it an agreeable enough fantasy, at least initially.

Unsure just how far to take the villainous threat, especially when a predictable but inefficiently explained twist is revealed that makes the situation all the more personal for Phoenix, as Journey continues, it spirals off into four distinctly different strands of plot that never quite weave back together into one.

Rather than pull us in for the rest of the movie, Elephant moves uneasily back-and-forth between the lost in the wild adventure, Flicka like coming-of-age tale, drama about a family trying to come together as one, and a thriller that doubles as a message movie about the evils of poaching and guns. And although together, the first three or last three storylines could've easily evolved into something stronger, in the end An Elephant's Journey suffers from the lack of a cohesive plot.

However, the film's dedication to sharing the truth about the vanishing African elephant population to young viewers who will be in a position to help save these amazing animals someday proves once again that, despite Journey's problems overall, much like Phoenix, Boddington's heart is in the right place.

Text ©2018, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy or screener link of this title in order to voluntarily decide to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique. Cookies Notice: This site incorporates tools (including advertiser partners and widgets) that use cookies and may collect some personal information in order to display ads tailored to you etc. Please be advised that neither Film Intuition nor its site owner has any access to this data beyond general site statistics (geographical region etc.) as your privacy is our main concern.

Film Movement Movie Review: I Am Not a Witch (2017)

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Fascinated by the way that "accusations of witchcraft [are] almost always aimed at women," Welsh writer/director Rungano Nyoni returned to her birthplace of Zambia for her years-in-the-making feature filmmaking debut, I Am Not a Witch.

A fiery mix of fact and feminist fairy tale, the tragicomic Witch, which was made using nonprofessional actors and cinematic techniques reminiscent of Von Trier, Fellini, and the Italian neorealists, deftly satirizes the power and gender politics at play in a Zambia witch camp where an eight-year-old unidentified orphan girl (later dubbed Shula) is sent after villagers label her a witch.

In a Kubrickian opening sequence set to the first movement of Vivaldi's "Winter," gawking tourists snap photos of witches posed entirely for their benefit. Each witch connected to a lengthy spool of ribbon to tether them to the camp where they live (or fields where they work for the government and seemingly without pay), the image is a hard one to shake and at the end of its ninety-three minute running time, in a simple yet unforgettable final shot, Nyoni casts those spools in a whole new light.

Chosen as England's official submission for the Best Foreign Language Film category of the Academy Awards, Witch ushers in a vital new voice and visual storyteller whom I predict we’ll be watching for years to come.

Narratively inspired by the French fairy tale Chèvre de Mr Seguin (aka Mr. Seguin's Goat), Nyoni stresses throughout the production notes of this Film Movement theatrical release that her work is much closer to fiction than reality. 

Yet, the film's powerful, unstudied performances and largely improvised dialogue from a cast of performers who'd never been in front of a movie camera before make it difficult to separate from contemporary neorealism inspired fare including Ponette, Children of Heaven, City of God, or Osama.

And this becomes that much harder given both Nyoni's decision to root the work in enough authenticity that it won't fly away like a witch off her spool of ribbon as well as the knockout performance of young lead Maggie Mulubwa (who was photographed by Nyoni's husband during a location scout, later necessitating the crew to go back with the picture to try and track her down).

Centering your film on a child largely alone and suddenly thrust into a situation beyond her control wherein Shula and the camp’s state guardian from the Ministry of Tourism and Traditional Beliefs, Mr. Banda (Henry B.J. Phiri) is exploiting her "powers" for money in exchange for promises of rain in the middle of a drought, for example, immediately brings out the viewer’s inner protector.

Needless to say we want to shield the girl who is forced to declare herself a witch or else be turned into a goat. Helplessly we watch as Shula first enjoys the sense of camaraderie with the other witches as well as the pride of bringing back a basket of gifts for identifying a criminal (essentially through a random guess).

Things change quickly however when she discovers not only the hypocrisy of Banda but also the cruel way she and fellow witches are treated out in public and especially the threats leveled at them, which seem just as (if not more) dangerous than being turned into a goat.

With roughly ninety percent of the film told through the largely silent Shula’s eyes, there are times when we wish that Witch could’ve provided us with a better developed secondary character to expand Nyoni's fascinating landscape even more and Nyoni attempts that with a female character one would never have guessed had been a witch.

But as Shula's story first and foremost and moreover, as a poetic fairy tale about an Alice or Dorothy sent to a gritty, exploitative, satirical Wonderland or Oz wherein sadly there's no place for them to call home this approach works very well.

Driving home her point in the end with an understated, near dialogue-free, show don't tell sequence, Nyoni casts a captivating spell over viewers who – like the tourists getting off the bus in Witch's beginning – are sure to be eager to see more from a director at the top of her form.

Text ©2018, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy or screener link of this title in order to voluntarily decide to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique. Cookies Notice: This site incorporates tools (including advertiser partners and widgets) that use cookies and may collect some personal information in order to display ads tailored to you etc. Please be advised that neither Film Intuition nor its site owner has any access to this data beyond general site statistics (geographical region etc.) as your privacy is our main concern.

Blu-ray Review: Khumba - 3D (2013)

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The second film produced by South Africa’s Triggerfish Animation Studios, this 3D amalgamation of The Lion King, Ice Age, Rio and Madagascar (which was ironically co-written by former Lion King screenwriter Jonathan Roberts), seems on the surface to target young, indiscriminating toddler-aged viewers fond of talking animal pictures.

Unfortunately and despite Triggerfish’s at times absolutely breathtaking, authentic African magic hour-set animation, given the ferocious half-blind lion voiced by Liam Neeson who talks of ripping into the flesh of Disney star Jake T. Austin’s youthful eponymous zebra hero to claim his beating heart, Khumba is far too intense to be appropriate for cinema's youngest audience members.

Yet at the same time, when you factor in the predictable nature of the overly-familiar storyline which in true Disney fashion kills off the mother and sends the young outsider on a multi-layered journey towards self-acceptance, it’s hard to imagine that older, somewhat discerning grade school aged children will find it interesting enough to tune into for its entire running time. Needless to say, it's hard to imagine just who Khumba is not only right for but also, who would like to watch it.

Centering the action on our titular hero who’s been ostracized as a zebra who was born with stripes that cover only half his body, after Khumba’s dying mother tells him a soothing fairytale about a magical waterhole that is said to grant stripes, he sets out on a quest to become more like the rest.

Bidding farewell to his superstitious tribe of zebras who blame their lack of water on Khumba’s “unnatural” appearance -- Khumba may head out on his own but quickly amasses a new tribe of fellow outsiders who tag along on the journey and help liven up the stale proceedings.

While a bit too on the nose in its moral lessons, moreover there’s a lot the audience is asked to forgive in Khumba that goes beyond its stale plotting. Specifically, it’s far too fond of stereotypical characterizations from casting Loretta Devine to voice the obligatory “wise black woman,” signing up Steve Buscemi to play a fast-talking east-coast sounding Italian American, and likewise relying on similar outdated devices in making Neeson’s villain disabled. While one could argue that Neeson's lion is blind because he "can't see" things for the way they are, the treatment of his character and the arc he takes doesn't play into that analysis as anything that's particularly that deep.

Though of course it’s doubtful that children will read anything into these decisions made by the scientist turned writer/director Anthony Silverston and his fellow writers Raffaella Delle Donne as well as Jonathan Roberts as these same elements occur frequently in animated movies, because Khumba is so flawed in its lazy plotting, there aren’t many places for all of Khumba’s problems to hide.

Despite this, it’s evident from the moment Khumba begins that as a studio, Triggerfish is definitely one to watch in the future given some of the superlative animation and striking use of 3D on display throughout the film.

Unfortunately for Khumba and first-time feature filmmaker Silverston, the magic of those multi-dimensional black glasses and the gloriously crisp images that come to life before our eyes on Khumba's Blu-ray aren’t able to salvage it in any way that would make the film worthy of a recommendation.

   

Text ©2014, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

TV on DVD: Long Way Down

Having completed a 20,000 mile motorcycle journey from London to New York in 2004 with the successful television series, Long Way Round, most people would've believed that riders Ewan McGregor and his best friend Charley Boorman had had if not the adventure of a lifetime than had earned themselves a nice, long break to relax with their families for a few years. But, speaking as the daughter of a man who has the motorcycle bug himself, that's just not how bikers operate. It's always the next trip, the next experience, and the next adventure that entices and while most average bikers are fine trekking around these fifty states, McGregor and Boorman still have that boyhood twinkle of mischief in their eyes and one instantly knows that they won't be content to just ride around the U.K. and wave at passersby blasting "Born to be Wild" on their iPods.

No, instead, they made plans for a second international journey and while one initially thought it was wise they were dropping the mileage down 5,000 miles to a 15,000 mile route, I can only imagine the look of shock on the faces of their family and friends when they announced that their follow-up adventure, entitled Long Way Down would find McGregor and Boorman traveling through as many as 20 countries making their way from John O'Groats, Scotland to Cape Town, South Africa, "descending through Western Europe and Africa before arriving at the southern most tip of the continent," as the DVD box explains. A journey throughout the whole of Africa and the kicker is, the duo have never been there before.

Re-teaming with the same group with whom they worked alongside for Long Way Round, Down finds the two riders as well as Claudio Von Planta (cameraman and head director of photography), cameraman Jimmy Simak, producers Russ Malkin and David Alexanian, a medic and security man, and of course the latest BMW model in the Adventure bikes series-- namely the R1200GS Adventure-- all ready for action.

View the Promo

Beginning their trek on May 12, 2007 and concluding on August 4, 2007-- the 10 episode series which has been played on the BBC during its production and here in the states on the Fox Reality Channel this past August, is finally making its way to DVD shelves in this incredible digital transfer onto a 3-Disc set, loaded with extra material including previously unseen footage, interactive route maps, a photo gallery, and McGregor and Boorman's African documentary entitled The Missing Face.

Following the men from the initial planning stages (check out the map here) as they set up shop in London and begin to try and tackle all of the foreseeable hurdles they'll encounter including one woman employed for "visa" patrol in ensuring the eight-men crew can make roughly twenty border crossings uninterrupted but in the end, the American members are denied access to certain countries. Additionally, they undergo strength and conditioning work, survival exercises as well as a hostility training course to face the human threat of a continent where people frequently go missing and machine gunfire is a regular occurrence.

Following an intense hostage training exercise where Charley learns the hard way not to ever try and abandon his group, they end up contemplating body armor or bullet proof glass on their SUVs before disaster strikes at home when Ewan cracks his ankle on a routine motorcycle ride in his neighborhood. However, eventually the journey begins and this time, they're in for yet another surprise when Eve, Ewan's wife who's never climbed aboard a motorcycle in her life, makes the decision that not only will she learn to ride but she wants to meet up with the guys in the eighth episode when they cross into Tanzania and head onto Malawi.

Although Eve, like Ewan and Charley had undergone some bike training before the journey, there's discussion in the first episode regarding the safety of having two parents in an unpredictable landscape together should disaster strike whether it's in the form of violence or a simple accident on the sand and viewers are left as nervous and apprehensive as some of the show's producers about the decision.

With eight men traveling together, there are stretches when they begin to wear on each other's nerves and a few instances when some are barely speaking as an ultra-tense Charley, still on edge about his ill wife who insisted he leave on schedule, is detained at London Gatwick Airport after mentioning the word "bomb" and must meet up with the men later. However, throughout the journey, it's the lure of adventure and the importance of working together (whether it's when vehicles are stuck in the mud or when the elements attack) that make them put aside any petty grievances.

An excellent and gorgeously photographed travelogue that shows not just the majestic beauty of Africa but also its tragic history as the men deliver goods on behalf of UNICEF and also visit the genocide museum and site of other horrific tragedies, yet the one area where Long Way Down falls short is one with which I think our riders would wholeheartedly agree. With a breakneck three month schedule of 15,000 miles, the men end up having to do so much riding that they're unable to take in enough of the landscape and perhaps get a far more accurate picture of life, instead of constantly being forced to zip by along the endless sandy roads.

Filled with self-deprecating humor by the leads, especially when McGregor and Boorman tour the set of the original Star Wars (now a makeshift museum) and McGregor isn't noticed by any tourist there (which is an amusing blow to the ego) as well as some truly moving scenes as we meet the child survivors who'd been abducted and forced into Ugandan armies, it's an effective, high quality documentary series on a number of levels.

Far richer than most "reality shows," I hesitate to give it such a label that would place it in the same category as Wife Swap and Wipe Out, but best experienced as a humanistic documentary, the 3-disc set of Long Way Down is currently available in select stores and via Amazon along with a companion book, soundtrack and other materials from the original Long Way Round which started it all.

Ewan & Charley's Journey: An Episode Guide