BEFORE: I probably should have mentioned, this week's going to be a weird combination of crime/spy films and animated animals. That's the linking for you, I can't work completely thematically right now, so I'm kind of bouncing around my list, and these two topics ended up being intertwined. Couldn't be helped.
Danny DeVito carries over from "Dumbo".
THE PLOT: A gorilla named Ivan tries to piece together his past with the help of an elephant named Ruby as they hatch a plan to escape from captivity.
AFTER: Obviously there's a lot carrying over from "Dumbo", as this film features both a baby elephant and an adult elephant character, at least for a while. And they're both Disney films that set out to make the point that circuses and zoos are generally bad places for animals to be, but this 2020 film manages to deliver that message more clearly and succinctly. Of course, this one cheated and allowed its animal characters to talk. "Toy Story" rules are in place here, the animals can talk to each other and all speak the same language, plus they can understand the humans, but the humans can't understand them. The little girl character probably comes the closest, she's got almost a psychic link with them.
Ivan can't remember much of his time in the wild, after all, he's not an elephant. But then later he is able to relate the story of how his family was killed by poachers, and a human family adopted him, almost like a baby. It's a bit of a discrepancy, how he can't remember and then suddenly he can, when he needs to tell a bedtime story to Ruby, the new baby elephant at the Big Top Mall circus show, outside Tacoma, just off Route 8.
Perhaps Ivan is suffering from too much time in captivity, and these days, who isn't? It's very easy to draw a line from the plight of a gorilla in a cage, albeit it a spacious one in a mall, to everyone these days who's working from home, having everything delivered from Amazon, and ordering too much take-out. I'm going more than a little stir-crazy myself, I'm home now four days a week out of seven, and there's just too much same-ness. OK, great, we've got the vaccine now, but it's apparently going to take two months just to vaccinate senior citizens, and that's assuming we don't run out of doses, which we almost certainly are about to do. (I'm shaking my fist at Trump for his lies and inaction, for what probably won't be the last time...)
Ivan also made a promise to the elder elephant, Stella, that he would find a way to get Ruby back into the wild somehow. That's when this talking animal film sort of morphs into a prison-break story of sorts, and Ivan knows how to lure the stupid animal handler into his cage, with the aid of stray dog Bob, while pretending to be sleeping, and then it's just a matter of opening the door from the inside and making a break for the forest, which is just across the highway. And since Ivan's recently had this revelation that all animals should be free and not held in captivity, that means bringing along the whole gang - Murphy the rabbit, Henrietta the chicken, Thelma the parrot and Frankie the seal. Only Ivan didn't really have a plan for what to do when they all GOT to the forest.
So the question is therefore raised - should all animals be released back into the wild? I'm not prepared to go that far, not when we've taken in several stray cats who probably lived longer under our roof than they would have out in the wild. Plus, even in Ivan's case his memory of poachers killing his family should logically lead to thinking that, whatever downside there is to living in the Big Top Mall, at least he's not being hunted or threatened in any way. So I think this is a complex question with no simple answer, even though the movie sort of jumps ahead in suggesting that there is one. Are circuses and zoos inherently bad, even if they're run by people with good intentions? Again, I'm not sure.
Look, cages come in many different forms, and for people a house can be a cage, an office definitely can be one, and some people might come to view a relationship as a form of cage. In those cases, even if your way of thinking goes in that direction, you have to ask if you're better off in the cage or out in the wild, trying to survive. Maybe "three hots and a cot" isn't so bad when the alternative is worse.
This story is based on a real-life account of a gorilla that did live and perform in a mall outside Tacoma, and after public protests he was sent to live at the Atlanta Zoo - which I'm sure has an amazing gorilla habitat, but at the end of the day, isn't that just another form of cage? Bigger and greener, for sure, but still a cage. Just saying.
Also starring Bryan Cranston (last seen in "The Lincoln Lawyer"), Ramon Rodriguez (last seen in "Battle Los Angeles"), Ariana Greenblatt (last seen in "Avengers: Infinity War"), Owain Arthur, Hannah Bourne, Eleanor Matsuura (last seen in "Justice League"), Indira Varma (last seen in "Exodus: Gods and Kings"), and the voices of Sam Rockwell (last seen in "Jojo Rabbit"), Angelina Jolie (last seen in "Maleficent: Mistress of Evil"), Helen Mirren (last seen in "State of Play"), Brooklynn Prince (last heard in "The Angry Birds Movie 2"), Chaka Khan (last seen in "Standing in the Shadows of Motown"), Ron Funches (last seen in "Killing Hasselhoff"), Phillipa Soo, Mike White (last seen in "Chuck & Buck").
RATING: 5 out of 10 yogurt raisins
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