One of the film's live-action locations
This is not a film review, it is a "dream back to Africa" of a heavy Safari fan!
Two months ago, Neko previewed a movie worth looking forward to. Lionsgate released an African wild survival thriller, Endangered Species, in May 2021, about a wealthy American family who survives an accident in a Kenyan wildlife sanctuary.
Sounds good, right?
I watched the comments in the African circle and smiled closely before watching this film.
A big bad movie with 2 points (5 points rating system), the comments section is livelier than the movie.
"Kenya's Advertising Campaign of the Year!"
"Aerial photography is beautiful! The script sucks! ”
"Why don't you have an African driver?!" A white tourist driving himself! Look down on us African drivers, right? you, anyway, advertising Africa! ”
"Are there so many poachers in Kenya? As soon as I came up, I arranged both! Sue the movie for slandering me great Kenya! ”
"Kenya is so beautiful, Kenya is so beautiful... I want to repeat it a hundred times. ”
"Now Amboseli and Samburu are famous again!"
"Upstairs you were wrong! That's not Samblu, it's Sabah okay! ”
I also joyfully went to leave a message:
"Dream back to Africa! It was a full half hour of Safari travel diary! But I won't travel with their family, my pig teammates kill people! ”
The opening scene of the movie
I watched the first half hour! It's a beautiful vlog travel diary, and every scene and picture is so familiar!
What a dream to go back to Kenya!
The film features Kenya's Amboseli National Park and Reserve, Tavi Private Sanctuary, Sabah National Park and Nairobi National Park.
Put three pictures of Tavi's private sanctuary and two beautiful pictures of Sabah.
It's stunningly beautiful.
Especially in Sabah National Park, in 2019, I led a Beijing film delegation to the place where I stepped on the spot, and it was directly moved into the movie. It was super exciting, and I poured a big cup of lemon green tea while watching the movie!
In 2019, I did a live-action shoot with Kenyan filmmaker Martin in Sabah
What exactly is this movie about? And where did it fail?
Synopsis in one sentence:
The classic, ugly Americans, how to learn a lesson in nature, took an important lesson: Endangered Wildlife in East Africa.
The following are some spoilers for "Endangered Species", which seems to have been processed by Nizi, and the story is much better.
Jack took his wife, a pair of their adult children and their daughter's boyfriend to Kenya for a holiday in anticipation of a rare dream vacation.
The first half hour of the movie is simply a travel diary, a complete record of the small plane flight, landing, small airport service, sanctuary hotel welcome, room facilities display, breakfast environment, Maasai bonfire party, golden sunrise safari process.
All in one go!
Amboseli National Park small airport, are you familiar with it?! Even the Kenyan staff member in the red T-shirt is an acquaintance! Surprised?!
Friends at the Tawi Private Sanctuary Hotel are overjoyed this time! Everyone brings a brand to the battlefield and advertises in all directions! To the rhythm of fire!
Low-key and beautiful Tavi, this next son can't be covered!
The place where I once spent the most time wandering and sleepwalking during the movie was the footage that appeared in the Tavi Conservation Area.
The African mornings and wilderness that are extremely missed, pure, simple and beautiful.
Colorful pictures of Safari life.
Even this bird is a representative of the African safari class that everyone knows! Can you still call it by its name?
Discuss the "African Big Five" at the dinner table.
The canopy is directly propped up by the tourist China-Pakistan, Kenya large group tour features and symbolizes.
Because of a series of selfish considerations by Papa Jack, the family ventured into the wilderness park alone, and their station wagon was rammed and tipped over by an angry female rhinoceros.
Injured, with no signal, no water, surrounded by spotted hyenas, plunged into despair. Later, when the two boys were on foot for rescue, a bloody encounter with the leopard provoked a struggle for survival. However, the most frightening thing is not wildlife....
There is no denying that the producers are passionate about protecting wildlife.
The detailed subtitles at the end of the film also clearly show that the director and actors are very concerned about endangered animals, especially rhinos, and thank everyone who has contributed.
But good intentions do not mean good results.
The movie didn't look good because of it.
As a husband and lover, jack's character is uncertain as soon as he appears, very turtle-haired. It turned out that this workaholic had been laid off by the company for a major mistake before leaving, and he decided to hide it from his family and privately decided: to "bargain" at all costs and implement tourism frugal measures.
He temporarily cancelled the hotel's charter tour package, rented a broken van, and pondered fare evasion as he entered the national park gates.
God (the director) actually created an opportunity for him: at the park gate, several poachers were caught on the spot (the end credits show that they were Thai poachers)!
When the gate guards were distracted, Jack kicked the gas pedal, slipped a cigarette and escaped into the national park, and drove into the closed management area in a panic.
Next, get lost, no signal, be attacked ... A series of encounters is nothing more than the result of a series of stupid moves.
Aside from Mom Lauren, there's hardly a character to be liked. Very unpleasant to the point that annoying characters appear one by one.... Keep arguing, apologize to each other, and start another round of inexplicable verbal attacks.
In addition to the mother, the family is a giant baby. The director also arranged for her mother to have diabetes, and the medicine was gone at the critical time, and she had to faint and faint.
The aerial scenes are beautiful, but they are very different from the animal attacks produced by the special effects, and it seems to jump between the movie and the stage play.
The family consists of a lying, selfish oilman father, Jack, his rebellious stepdaughter Zoe and her hippie boyfriend Billy, gay son Noah and diabetic wife Lauren. Lauren, a stay-at-home mom who used to be a doctor, is the only capable actor in the group, though she's not that good enough to be liked.
Like many American disaster films, the show is about family and redemption. Every guy is an asshole until he's redeemed, and the only good character is Mom. Surprisingly, she was unconscious throughout the plot, "returning to her soul" at a critical time, and "directing" the battle.
Because of these people's own stupidity, you will not sympathize with their suffering in the slightest. Although some scenes of violence inevitably make people want to generate some sympathy, you will immediately realize that this is just a makeup effect.
After about an hour of going around in circles, finally, the family and the "poachers" who are more terrifying than wild animals are at war!
Blessed with the unique scenery of the red land and rocky rivers of Sabah National Park, coupled with the atmosphere of the dark night campfires and gun battles, finally, there is a little bit of adventure movie taste.
However, the actor's lines and character development are as blunt as the big green apricot in early June. Arrogant poachers publish long stories to prove themselves in order to help indigenous peoples improve their lives. All the confrontation and car chase scenes feel like the actors are dry and rote.
Even the causes of conflict are vain!
Because, in the real safari world, foreign families who have just arrived will not be allowed to drive in the wilderness of Africa's national parks and protected areas! First of all, a license and registration are required.
Sure, poachers have to be evil bastards, but this family of idiots is less likely to be sympathized with.
At the end of the movie, subtitles fill the screen. Viewers were told:
Thousands of rhinos and elephants are killed each year because of their horns and tusks. Many people go to kill wild animals for useless trinkets and ingredients, and many people try to prevent such things from happening every day.
The poacher caught by the women's anti-poaching team in the film
My personal feeling is that over the years, there have been loud international calls to stop buying wildlife products. However, without corresponding poverty alleviation systems and measures to help local people solve their livelihood problems, unilateral appeals and stops of purchases are ineffective.
All in all, it's so frustrating to watch stupid people make bad decisions.
The film also gives some samples of stupid tourists:
Spoiled Americans complain that tour buses are not Air-conditioned Mercedes;
Complaining in protected areas that there are no asphalt roads, simply believing that Africa is poor enough to build roads;
As soon as you arrive at the resort, you hurry to find WiFi to send an email to read your mobile phone;
What an embarrassment! Isn't it familiar? How much money is spent, and it is necessary to enjoy what they think is the matching service, which is the psychological basis of all tourists.
Eco-friendly water bottles in the real-life protected area
Interestingly, the Kenyan ban on plastic bags became part of the crisis in the film. Because Dad wanted to bring plastic bottled water, everyone laughed at and annoyed him, and later got his wish to change the glass water bottle that could be filled with water multiple times, because it was better for the environment. Of course, when the rhinos attacked their car, the glass water bottle broke and not a drop of water was left.
In fact, in many private reserves in Kenya, lightweight metal water bottles are standard, not bulky and fragile glass bottles.
It seems that originally, the producers wanted to pay tribute to the African wildlife thriller of the 70s, but then transformed into an educational film about exposing the evils of Poaching in Africa.
Endangered Species was born out of the times and had lofty intentions, but required a better script and at least one or two cute characters.
As a low-end adventure action film, this film must have looked good 30 years ago, but today, more sophisticated audiences will find it ridiculous and lacking in excitement.
The scenery of Kenya, where the film was filmed, looks spectacular. Magnificent aerial photography, which makes people feel a little distracted, and immediately dragged back. For a bad plot, it's like returning from a camp and sweating a tired person with perfume.
Back in the 1950s, international travel was less common, and this genre of film is set against the backdrop of African adventures, where ordinary people can witness exotic landscapes and see some fresh and exciting images of wild animals and humans being attacked.
But Endangered Species' budget doesn't seem to extend to any real animals. Rhino mothers and children, hyena herds and fierce leopards are all made with shocking CGI special effects.
Like the story of the wolf when I was a child, it is not too much to do, and the hyena group appears so many times that it is tiresome.
What me the most is that the leopard in the movie actually gave up its prey and inexplicably ran away after falling off the tree in the air!
The real leopard will never be so unintelligent! Never be stupid enough to drag the prey to the tree without killing it.
The prey in the movie not only ran away from the corpse, but also walked a lot in the protected area where spotted hyenas were infested with blood and water. At that time I was thinking, where did the lion run? There was such a shortage of funds that not a single lion appeared!
Sorry, you can see who Neko's true love is.
Finally, I would like to sincerely thank the producers who love wildlife and pay attention to wildlife conservation, and have the courage to blacken themselves and expose the stupidity of human beings. In addition to the true mention that many of the handicrafts sold by the Maasai people are wholesale from China, and there is no Chinese making a big fuss about this matter, the end of the film is noted as "Thai poachers".
The real stars of the film are The Lioness Squad, a women's anti-poaching group in Kenya, who appear at the beginning and end of the film as the main team that captures poachers, which is impressive!
Later, I will have time to give you a detailed introduction to these powerful, respectable and lovely African girls!
In addition, although the film is very bad, it was filmed in Kenya during the epidemic, which injected a dose of encouragement into the Kenyan film and tourism community, greatly encouraging and inspiring the wildlife sanctuaries and tourism industry in Kenya and Africa!
In the end credits, I saw the names of several good Kenyan friends and was so happy for them!
For this, it has a perfect score beyond reality film reviews in my mind. Resby!
Hats off to filmmakers who have the courage to express their love and take responsibility!
Only love will make you meet your best friends and see the world outside the wall.
Birds singing, beasts free.