Crusoe in new perspective

Remember the Island of Misfit Toys, home for unwanted playthings, from the Rudolph Christmas special? Well, part of the same archipelago is the Island of Unemployed Breakfast Cereal Mascots. After they’d hired Tony the Tiger, Sugar Bear and that strungout Trix rabbit, the also-rans were shipped off to a desolate speck of land in the Atlantic.

How else to explain the presence on one rock of a grumpy old goat, a pudgy tapir, a chameleon and a few other animals, all with less personality than a flake of corn? This atoll is the setting for The Wild Life, originally titled Robinson Crusoe until the film’s producers worried that perhaps the ghost of Daniel Defoe would sue. But it’s the same story of a shipwrecked adventurer; the twist is it’s told from the point of view of the animals. In 3D.

Chief among the critters is Mak ( David Howard), the parrot who lost out to Toucan Sam for Froot Loops. He’s long wanted to leave the island and see the world, and is excited when a little piece of the world shows up in the form of a shipwreck. Crusoe ( Yuri Lowenthal) names the bird Tuesday after the day they met — thank heavens it wasn’t on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.

Mak/ Tuesday convinces the rest of the islanders to help Crusoe. Crusoe reciprocates by not eating any of the local land-based wildlife. They all join forces against a pair of evil cats who were shipwrecked along with him.

The best thing to be said about this sedentary storyline is that it contains no bathroom humour. But since it also contains practically no humour at all, this isn’t much.

The Wild Life opens on a Friday, but that may not be enough to save it. Ω