Peter Gaulke (Steve Zahn) is the son of a famous TV personality who hosted a wildlife show this movie is named after. When his father passed away a couple of years back, Peter took it upon himself to keep the show going. Unfortunately, the show has been on a downward spiral ever since.
His crew consists of Fred (Allen Covert) and Danny (Peter Dante, both Happy Madison regulars), as well as Cooker (Jonah Hill, SuperBad) and Milas and his son (played by Ernest Borgnine and Justin Long (Accepted, respectively). When a network executive calls them into his office to lay everything out straight, we, the viewer, get a chance to see exactly how low the show has gone over the years. Understandably, the network is about to drop their show, unless of course, they can come up with something really big in the next two weeks.
Lucky for them, a long-time friend of the family shows up on Peter's doorstep with picture of, and the opportunity to buy a map to, Bigfoot. So the crew starts getting things together for a drive down to Ecuador, but first they need a few more hires. They take on a travel supervisor named Cheryl (Ashley Scott) and an alcoholic/former mechanic played by Super Trooper's Kevin Heffernan to be an animal handler.
During their journey, they will meet up with a couple of guides, including the crazy Gus Hayden (Robert Patrick, T2, X-Files), all in the hopes of catching Bigfoot on film. Their journey takes many twists and turns as they find many places to film various animals in the wild for their show. Unfortunately, one stop leads to an unsettling side-story where a turkey gets clamped onto one of the character's giblets.
Like I said, I had high hopes for Strange Wilderness, but for the most part, it was disappointing. The comedy was a bit to low-brow and forced (even for my tastes) and a lot of the acting just seemed stiff. I don't know if it was the directing, or just the general vibe from all the actors, but nothing felt natural. One of the more disappointing aspects with the rising star Jonah Hill, who I've enjoyed in everything I've seen him in, until this film. His character has an odd hick accent that doesn't sound right, and it took me half of the movie to realize that was supposed to be the character's voice and not just some way Cooker speaks when he is being an ass. In general, the overall feel was very off.
As for special features, Strange Wilderness has a few quick little clips, that for the most part feel like someone just left the camera rolling on set and stuck the footage on the DVD. "Cooker's Song" films Hill and Long sitting on a couch in the RV while Hill plays the guitar. Here you get to hear the whole tune, instead of just the little bit actually seen in the movie.
"The Turkey" talks about the aforementioned scene where the engineers from Almost Human explain the details about their animatronic bird and how they designed it so that Zahn could control the flapping while he was running around with it attached to his waist. Most of this footage, as well as the "What Do We Do?" footage are the actors sitting around trying to get the scenes done. All three of these clips felt more like blooper reels than any kind of featurette.
I'm not really sure I would recommend this film to even the most die-hard Happy Madison fans, or even fans to any individual in this film. While I like most of them in their place, it seems that place isn't all together. If you have to see it, then rent, but only if you have to.
