Fierce Creatures (1997)

Directed by Robert Young & Fred Schepisi. Starring John Cleese, Kevin Kline, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Palin, Bille Brown, Robert Lindsay, Carey Lowell, Ronnie Corbett, Derek Griffiths, Cynthia Cleese, Richard Ridings, Gareth Hunt, Maria Aitken. [PG-13]

Spiritual successor to A Fish Called Wanda reassembles the four leads (plus a minor role for Aitken) for another cheeky farce, this one set in the world of mass media conglomerates and zoo entertainment. Kline plays the Rupert Murdoch-esque billionaire owner of Octopus Inc., who has recently acquired a struggling English zoo, and his son (also played by Kline) accompanies Curtis’ savvy businesswoman to the zoo in order to make it more profitable. Newly-appointed zoo director Cleese reasons that the best way to achieve this goal is by getting rid of all the cute and cuddly critters and focusing instead on dangerous animals to attract thrill-seeking crowds. Although not nearly in the same league as Wanda, this undervalued comedy still generates lots of big laughs through the strength of its comic performers and outrageous situations, from zookeepers trying to convince Cleese that meerkats are the “piranhas of the desert” to the efforts to bug the billionaire’s hotel room going terribly awry. The storyline doesn’t hold together—the seams of post-production tinkering aren’t hard to spot—and some scenarios aren’t as fruitful as others (the flirtatious “dance” between Cleese and Curtis is practically stillborn compared to their zesty tangos in Wanda), but funny is funny. Dedicated to naturalist Gerald Durrell and comedic actor Peter Cook, who each passed away in 1995, the year that the movie was initially filmed; re-shoots delayed the film’s completion and release, and resulted in two credited directors—Young was in charge of the initial shoot, Schepisi came aboard for the new/altered scenes.

78/100