This is How Movies Should Be Made

Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

As far as plots go, this film has little, a woman who works for an American mega-media corporation travels to Africa to meet a bloke who lives in a tree along with his faithful native assistant. The two men have spent the last twelve years following a female leopard and her many broods. The plan is for our intrepid city slick to make a film about this valiant creature. Alas, she is already living on borrowed time, and just as the project is commissioned, the lions catch up with her. What now?The two cubs from her latest brood have survived, but won't for much longer unless they are rescued by nature boy and his sidekick. They are, now the cubs are pursued by predators on two legs who want to flog them to a zoo.Those who remember that Nature is red in tooth and claw will surely not sentimentalise over the fate of these cute but rapidly growing carnivores. Where the film does score is the stunning footage of wildlife, most of which does not appear to be from the archive.

Good (not great) wildlife footage is weighed down by a flat, uninteresting story and perfunctory human scenes (Martin Sheen collects a paycheck). The leopard cubs are cute, Brooke Shields is gorgeous (she has my favorite female body type), but the film as a whole is a bit of a well-intentioned bore. **1/2 out of 4.

In the 1990s there seemed to be a new mini-trend for BORN FREE-type movies detailing animal conservation in Africa. RUNNING WILD is one such film, a South African-shot movie featuring conservationist John Vardy playing himself, taking two orphaned leopard cubs into care and raising them almost single-handedly.Unfortunately this low budget tale feels quite twee and very artificial. The quality of the writing is below par and the script is very obvious in its depiction of human agencies and villains. The lead actress, Brooke Shields, plays a real airhead type character who just wanders through the scenery and gazes at the pretty creatures.RUNNING WILD's one saving grace is the stock nature footage, which is worth tuning in for. The leopard cubs are invariably cute and there are some other strong bits included, like predation footage which comes as a shock in places. The viewer gets a good knowledge of animal behaviour in its own environment, but I would have much preferred this to be a straightforward documentary feature rather than a failed attempt to make a real film.

This film's strong point is its wildlife photography. With actual footage of the true events it's loosely based on, it has a very authentic feel. However, the story itself and its themes left me somewhat unsatisfied.Not as entertaining as, say, "Free Willy" and not as powerful as "Gorillas in the Mist", this movie missed some great opportunities to be more than it is. Only in the last 5 minutes do we get a glimpse of Varty's philosophical thoughts on conservationism. I really enjoyed that part, and if Varty is to do another film I would hope he includes a lot more of it. But most of the movie consists of nice leopard footage without much deeper commentary.The story itself doesn't really focus on the global problems of conservation but instead focuses on the specific efforts to save 2 cubs, and without much drama in that respect, that's why the film loses strength. There are 2 villains in the movie: 1) a sleazy corporate suit who is trying to destroy the film project; and 2) a corrupt game warden who's trying to spoil Varty's plans to rehabilitate the cubs. Neither of these antagonists really relates to the global problem, thereby making the story a bit mundane. Like I said, only at the end does Varty offer some deep thoughts.Another missed opportunity is that the movie fails to address the theme of interfering with nature (here in a productive way) which the DVD description led me to expect. A wildlife documentarian is supposed to be truly objective, not interfering in any of the scenes no matter how disturbing they may be. Varty crosses the line, which I found very interesting. But the film doesn't really address that. Crikey, that theme could've been powerful enough to carry the whole film.So in the end we get a lot of pretty footage but not much else. Oh one more warning: leopards are predators of course, so while they look extremely fuzzy & cute, they do kill their food. I don't recall much footage of actual kills, mostly just bloody wildebeest carcasses afterwards, but either way it kinda kills the "awww" feeling.I'm glad this film is out there because there aren't many conservation films in the world, and even worse, many of them make conservationists look like maladjusted freakshows (like Herzog's "Grizzly Man"). But I would sooner recommend "Gorillas in the Mist" or, for kids, "Sandy the Seal". Another film that comes to mind is the Vietnamese movie "Buffalo Boy" which is more about human nature than animals, but the story is about a guy who leads a pair of caribous for days in search of food & water. Great photography there.