Tag: Adventure
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Into The Wild. Dir. Sean Penn. Paramount Vantage. 2007.
It’s 1992, and Christopher McCandless, reborn as Alexander Supertramp, embarks on a ‘rite of passage for a young man in search of meaning,’[1] escaping from the human world and into the Alaskan wilderness. A ‘vagabond loner’[2] who donates his college fund to Oxfam and abandons his worldly goods by the side of the road, Alex forges relationships with the…
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The Plague Dogs. Dir. Martin Rosen. United Artists. 1982.
Based on Richard Adams’ 1977 novel of the same name, The Plague Dogs[1] follows the story of Rowf and Snitter, who escape from an animal research centre after Rowf’s cage is left unlocked, finding themselves in the heart of the Peak District. The dogs hope to find a master, but every human encounter is hostile. Running out…
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Born Free. Dir. James Hill. Columbia Pictures. 1966.
Born Free deals with the contradictory question of how to demonstrate the behaviour of a wild animal in a tame, domestic environment. Through an exploration of the binaries between wild and tame, domestic and barbarous, Elsa’s hamartia is revealed; she is too wild to be a tame pet, but too tame to be a wild…
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Never Cry Wolf. Dir. Carrol Ballard. Buena Vista Distribution. 1983.
Carroll Ballard’s 1983 adaptation of Farley Mowat’s 1963 dramatised autobiography Never Cry Wolf is as intricate and astonishingly baffling as it is brilliant. The film tells the story of biologist Tyler and his time in the Canadian arctic where he has volunteered to take part in a scientific study of wolves, largely considered by the…
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The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe . Dir. Andrew Adamson. Buena Vista Pictures. 2005.
In an old house in the midst of the Second World War, entry to the magical world of Narnia is discovered hidden away in a dusty wardrobe behind even dustier coats. Once in this magical land, whose rule by the omniscient lion Aslan has been overthrown, the Pevensie children must help restore Narnia to its former…
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Robin Hood. Dir. Wolfgang Reitherman. Walt Disney Productions. 1973.
Robin Hood, dir. Wolfgang Reitherman (Walt Disney Productions, 1973) Here is the trailer for the ‘foxy’ Robin Hood:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awONp__GGvU This Disney animation of the legend of Robin Hood focuses on the adventures of the eponymous hero as he steals from the rich to give to the poor. Early in the film, with his friend Little John, (Phil Harris)…
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Scooby-Doo. Dir. Raja Gosnell. Warner Bros. Pictures. 2002.
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Homeward Bound . Dir. Duwayne Dunham. Disney. 1993.
In our society and culture, there are many things that affect the relationships and views we have between ourselves and non-human animals; one major aspect being films that focus on animals. Particularly, in Homeward Bound, an adventure film, the fact that the animals were at the center of the film, that they were given human voices…
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Jurassic Park. Dir. Steven Spielberg. Universal. 1993.
Revisiting ‘Jurassic Park’ in light of ‘Blackfish’. With next summer’s release of ‘Jurassic World,’ recently teased with a trailer starring Chris Pratt, I think it’s worthwhile to revisit the original film in the paleontological franchise in light of the 2013 SeaWorld-documentary ‘Blackfish,’ with a focus on the inherent abuse captivity represents for wild animals and…
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The Great Mouse Detective. Dir. Ron Clements, Burny Mattison, David Michener, and John Musker. Walt Disney. 1986.
In the world of the animated feature film The Great Mouse Detective (Clements, Mattison, Michener, and Musker, 1986), Victorian-era London contains a society of talking mice that mirrors the city’s human occupants. When one of these mice, Hiram Flaversham, a single father and toy maker, is kidnapped by a peg-legged bat named Fidget, Flaversham’s daughter Olivia, along…