Taglines: Don’t pet them.
Fierce Creatures movie storyline. The owner and CEO of Atlanta-based multinational corporation Octopus Inc., worth $6 billion, is bombastic Aussie transplant Rod McCain. Rod ‘s son, the opportunistic Vince McCain, works for the organization as the marketing manager, despite Rod considering Vince a wuss, Vince just waiting for his father to die so that he can inherit the corporation, and Vince having previously stole from the corporation about which Rod is well aware and for which Vince served time.
What Vince doesn’t know is that even if Rod has any intention to die ever – which he doesn’t – he doesn’t plan to give Vince anything. Rod has a general policy that any of his assets has to net a 20% return on investment. Within one of Octopus’ recent acquisitions is Marwood Zoo in England. Rod transfers one of his Hong Kong based employees, straight-laced Rollo Lee, a former police officer, to run the zoo, he who just wants to do his job for the corporation, namely net that 20% return.
As such, his first major change is to implement a policy of only housing what he considers the marquee animals, namely fierce creatures. This new policy does not sit well with the zoo staff, particularly the animal keepers, who do *anything* to convince Rollo that all the animals at the zoo are important, while Rollo wants to show his staff at any cost that he is in charge. Rollo and the zoo staff have another enemy with arrivals from Atlanta.
Willa Weston is a new Octopus employee, who wants to run the zoo as Rod sold the asset for which she was hired to head on her first day with the company. Accompanying Willa is Vince, who mistakenly believes that Willa is interested in him romantically. While Willa wants to devise the model of zoo operation for the corporation, Vince has his own ideas of how to make a quick buck for the zoo and thus for himself, moves which sit well with no one but Vince.
Willa and Rod, based on circumstantial evidence, mistakenly believe that Rollo is a ladies’ man, who has multiple female sex partners during any of his liaisons. They all have yet another enemy when they learn that Rod is coming to England in a move to sell the zoo to a Japanese corporation, who want to replace the zoo on the property with a golf course. Through this entire process, Rollo and Willa both come to some revelations about their feelings toward zoos and this zoo in particular, and about each other, which makes their priority to save the zoo from sale so that they can operate it together in their new vision.
Fierce Creatures is a 1997 farcical comedy film. While not literally a sequel, Fierce Creatures is a spiritual successor to the 1988 film A Fish Called Wanda. Both films star John Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline and Michael Palin. Fierce Creatures was written by John Cleese, and directed by Robert Young and Fred Schepisi. The film was dedicated to Gerald Durrell and Peter Cook. Some scenes were filmed at Jersey Zoo, a zoological park founded by Durrell.
Film Review for Fierce Creatures
Having worked under the proprietorship of media baron Rupert Murdoch, I was receptive to the satirical version of him presented in “Fierce Creatures,” where a Murdochian tycoon wonders if he could buy the satellite TV rights to all of the executions in China. Nor did I blink at a scene where a new employee turns up to program his station, only to learn he has sold it that very morning. At that level, corporations change hands faster than the rest of us unload used cars.
The Murdoch figure in “Fierce Creatures,” named McCain (Kevin Kline), is a blustering bully who demands that all of his properties return an annual profit of at least 20 percent. That includes a zoo he has recently acquired, more or less by accident, in England. He assigns a man named Rollo Lee (John Cleese) to run the zoo, and Lee immediately orders that it will feature only dangerous animals–since they’re the best at boosting ticket sales. All other animals must be shot.
This is a funny idea, especially when filtered through the apoplectic character Cleese created on “Fawlty Towers” and essentially repeats here. Autocratic, shortsighted and hair-triggered, Rollo orders his staff to start shooting the harmless animals, and when they balk, he determines to do it himself.
The staff, a grab bag of eccentric animal lovers, unsuccessfully tries to convince him that all of the animals are dangerous. (“The meercat is known as the piranha of the desert! It can strip a corpse clean in three minutes!”) Although Rollo’s executions do not proceed precisely on schedule, a greater threat to his reign is presented by the arrival of old McCain’s son Vince (Kline, in a dual role) and Willa Weston (Jamie Lee Curtis), the deposed programmer. Vince desperately hopes to take over the zoo and increase its profits, in order to prove himself to his cruel and distant father. Willa wants a share of the glory, and both Vince and Rollo want a share of her generous charms, displayed in the kind of wardrobe that might result if women’s business suits were designed by Frederick’s of Hollywood.
Kline, Cleese, Curtis and Michael Palin (as a hapless animal lover) are reassembled here for the first time since the brilliant comedy “A Fish Called Wanda” (1988). Few movies can hope to be that funny. “Fierce Creatures” is not. It lacks the hair-trigger timing, the headlong rush into comic illogic, that made “Wanda” so special. But it does have a charm of its own, and moments of wicked inspiration (regarding the problem of shooting the harmless animals: “It’s a pity this isn’t Texas; we could charge people to do it for us”) One of the problems may be the dual role by Kevin Kline.
Although multiple roles sometimes work (as in Eddie Murphy’s family dinner scene in “The Nutty Professor”), they’re more often a distraction. Part of my mind is forever trying to see through the trick. I’m observing that they’re usually not in the same frame at the same time–and when they are, I’m thinking about how it was done. That brief lack of focus is deadly to the concentration needed for perfect comic timing.
There’s also a subtle failure of timing in some of the slapstick sequences, as when a dead body is being dealt with toward the end. Slapstick doesn’t consist merely of rushing around frantically; it has a clockwork logic, in which every element must be in position at precisely the right moment. This is so hard to do that it’s a miracle when it works; it involves almost musical cadences. “Fierce Creatures” doesn’t quite click.
Still, I’m fond of the movie. I like its use of lust and greed, always the most dependable elements of comedy, and I like the way Jamie Lee Curtis demonstrates how a low-cut dress can shift the balance of power in almost any room.
Fierce Creatures (1997)
Directed by: Robert Young, Fred Schepisi
Starring: John Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline, Michael Palin, Ronnie Corbett, Carey Lowell, Robert Lindsay, Maria Aitken, Cynthia Cleese, Richard Ridings
Screenplay by: John Cleese, Iain Johnstone
Production Design by: Roger Murray-Leach
Cinematography by: Ian Baker, Adrian Biddle
Film Editing by: Robert Gibson
Costume Design by: Hazel Pethig
Set Decoration by: Peter Howitt, Stephenie McMillan, Brian Read
Art Direction by: David Allday, Kevin Phipps
Music by: Jerry Goldsmith
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sexual innuendo and language.
Distributed by: Universal Pictures
Release Date: January 24, 1997 (United States), February 14, 1997 (United Kingdom)
Hits: 175
