Let's (Try To) Watch This: "Zoo Wars" (2018)

Hoo boy.

Ladies and gentlemen, is this review gonna be negative.

I am telling you this in advance because I'm sure that there are folks out there that prefer positive reviews to negative ones. But this is not a positive review in the slightest. So if you don't want to see me complain for the entire duration of this post, now's the time to leave my blog.

Are you still here? Alright, but don't say I didn't warn you. Today we're going to be reviewing something called Zoo Wars.

I stumbled upon this film while looking for animated movies on Amazon that I thought would make good reviewing material. How did this get made? Well, this is just a theory, but my guess is that somebody at WowNow Entertainment saw how much money Zootopia made and thought, "Hey, Zootopia is popular, and Star Wars is also popular, so if we combine the two together into one film, maybe people will like it!"

Is the film any good? Spoiler alert: NO. Seriously, just look at the picture above. The ugly character designs, the cliched "It's a jungle out there!" tagline, just how ungodly ABSURD the thing looks... I had extremely low expectations going in, and boy howdy those expectations were met.

Oh yeah, and there's apparently a sequel called Zoo Wars 2: Into the Zooniverse (I am not kidding). Don't expect me to do a review of THAT.

But anyhow, this exists, so SOMEBODY'S gotta make a review of it. We might as well dive in. That is, unless you don't want to read this review because you think the film looks and sounds so bad that you can't even bring yourself to look at screencaps. If that's the case, you can leave my blog now. Or go read another one of my reviews, either or.

Are you still here? Well, again, don't say I didn't warn you. This is Zoo Wars.

So, because it's a Star Wars knockoff, the film begins with a parody of the iconic opening crawl. The narrator tells us that two opposing forces have emerged in the "Zooverse" - the "Nice Side" and the "Mice Side", each seeking to wield the most powerful force in the "Zooverse". Which is known as "the power of the sauce". Bongo Bananas, the last of the Nice Side Warriors, is missing and in his absence, the leader of the Mice Side, Boo Boo Squeal, has grown strong. Princess Sparklefeather, the leader of the Nice Side, is now on the run. And no, I have no idea what I just typed.

The Nice Side's only hope is to find the legendary "Chosen One". Oy, it's one of those "Chosen One" stories. Seeing as the elephant is the most prominent character on the DVD cover, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that he's the Chosen One.

So after that, we cut to some spaceship flying around through outer space. Inside the spaceship, a hippo who sounds like Ed Wynn and a mouse are talking about how they must find the Chosen One.

Remy was so outraged by PIXAR not making a sequel to Ratatouille
that he joined the Dark Side.

This is apparently Boo Boo Squeal, the main antagonist of the film. I guess since the film's main character is an elephant, the filmmakers thought it'd be funny to have the villain be a mouse 'cause of that whole "elephants are afraid of mice" myth. The hippo asks Boo Boo why he's searching for the Chosen One, so Boo Boo gives some exposition: the Chosen One is the only one who stands between him and world domination. The hippo claims that the Chosen One is a myth, but Boo Boo insists that he's out there and demands that the hippo get him some guacamole so that he can "replenish [his] sauce power". Then a giraffe appears on an overhead TV and tells Boo Boo that his frog mercenary has captured Princess Sparklefeather. Blah blah blah, Boo Boo is evil, blah blah blah, he wants to rule the universe, blah blah blah…

Meanwhile, on the planet Zootrini, a "very special" elephant is hard at work typing crap into a computer. He talks to his co-worker, a slug named Morty, about how much their job sucks. "I'm Nuke Tiptoes! An ELEPHANT, for tusk's sake! A proud beast! Majestic, highly intelligent, deeply emotional... I belong in the open spaces of the galaxy!" he complains. "I long for a life of adventure, Morty! A life of excitement!" So, yeah, he's your basic animated movie protagonist that hates their life and wants more. He wants adventure in the great, wide somewhere.

I know this is admittedly a small thing, but it freaks me out that the elephant
has fingers...

Suddenly, Nuke hears a strange voice inside his head. The voice says that Nuke must do what he says and that he can get Nuke off this planet. Also, it sounds like a surfer dude trying to do a stereotypical "dumb guy" voice. "You have a destiny, my elephant friend!" it claims. Thus begins a painfully unfunny and unbelievably long sequence in which Nuke argues with the voice, then Nuke hits the "ENTER" key, which beams him onto what appears to be a flying submarine sandwich.

I suppose I should probably bring up right now that this film has only two voice actors that aren't just credited as "Additional Voices" - all the males are voiced by somebody named KJ Schrock and all the females are voiced by somebody named Bobbi Maxwell.

Boy, this is the weirdest Subway commercial that I've ever seen...

Aboard the ship is a robot known as B-52 of the "Nice Side Robotic Fleet". Get it? It's funny because it's a reference to that band the B-52s. He also has a British accent, so I guess that he's supposed to be the C-3PO of the film.

"I've got me a spaceship, it's as big as a whale, and it's heading on down
to the Love Shack!"

He welcomes Nuke to the "Sparkle Express", Princess Sparklefeather's personal fleet vessel, and informs him that they're going on a mission. "Pink Space Elephants! A mission?!" Nuke exclaims. B-52 tells him what we already know - the Mice Side have kidnapped Princess Sparklefeather. Now they must seek an ally, a rebel squirrel named Squeezy Whistle. What is going on with these names? Boo Boo Squeaks, Princess Sparklefeather, Squeezy Whistle... these sound like names a three-year-old would come up with.

Then we cut to this guy.

GEICO: Fifteen minutes can save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance.

Okay, so this is apparently the frog mercenary that the giraffe mentioned before. He tells Boo Boo that he's captured the princess. He and Boo Boo argue for a few seconds, then we cut back to Nuke and B-52. Nuke burps, because burping is automatically funny. Then that voice from before comes back. It introduces itself as Bongo Bananas and tells Nuke to take command of the ship and fly it into a wormhole.

The wormhole takes them into the "Sauce Dimension", where all is sauce. For those that don't get it by now, the sauce = the force. It can be used for good, but if too much garlic is added to it, it can be used for EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL! After we get references to Twitter and SnapChat, they escape the wormhole and see Squeezy's ship, the Cashew, and are teleported aboard. B-52 gives some exposition as to who Squeezy is... basically, he's Han Solo.

Not exactly Harrison Ford, is he?

Discount Hammy from Over the Hedge demands to know who they are, so Nuke gives some exposition. Squeezy refuses to help because I don't know, and then we cut back to Boo Boo and the hippo who looks like they just slapped Donkey from Shrek's face on the body of one of the hippos from Animaniacs.

For whatever reason, the eyes of the characters freak me out. I can't put
my finger on WHY, though.

We get an unfunny scene where the hippo calls Evil Tutter cute, which enrages him, then an ugly CGI pig appears on the screen and tells Boo Boo that the princess has arrived.

Meanwhile, on the Cashew, Squeezy gets a call from a warthog bounty hunter demanding that he surrender his ship or else he'll blow 'em to smithereens.

Insert Pumbaa joke here, I can't think of anything funny.

We get an "epic" space battle, then we finally get to see this Princess Sparklefeather. She's an elephant too. So, I'm guessing she'll either be Nuke's love interest or his sister. Probably the latter, since she's the Leia of the film and all...

Princess Sparklefeather demands to know why Boo Boo hates the Nice Side so much, so Boo Boo tells her that he wanted to be a Nice Side warrior but they didn't accept him. He was so ticked-off that he decided to use the power of the sauce to take over the world. But first, he must get rid of the "Chosen One", and he wants the princess to tell him where the "Chosen One" is. Predictably, she refuses, but he has the ability to read her mind.

By the way, the "sauce" is apparently just saying the names of random condiments. Come on, even using the Force took more effort than that.

So when does Darth Vader show up and sue this guy for copyright infringement?

As for the Cashew, it and its inhabitants have finally gotten rid of the boar. As it turns out, Squeezy and Princess Sparklefeather were once in love... cause, you know, Squeezy = Han and Princess Sparklefeather = Leia. But it didn't work out. Mainly because she's an elephant and he's a squirrel. That's why he left the Mice Side.

As it turns out, the princess recorded a message for Squeezy, but B-52 refuses to play it for him until he apologizes for being a jerk. He reluctantly does. This is another scene that's supposed to be funny but isn't in the slightest.

The message tells Squeezy that the princess has been captured and that the Chosen One has been trained to be a master of the sauce and that she needs him to find the leader of the Nice Side Warriors - Bongo Bananas - so that they can find the Chosen One. Nuke, of course, knows Bongo Bananas, but nobody believes him or his claims that Bongo Bananas talks to him.

Okay, so a squirrel, an elephant, and a robot are in a spaceship... this is
like the setup of an unfunny joke.

Nuke and Squeezy argue for a few minutes, we get a reference to Dr. Phil because pop culture references, and eventually Squeezy brings up somebody who can help them sort this big crazy mess out. His name is Jabber the Jaw.

No, not Jabberjaw. Jabber THE Jaw. There's a "THE" in the middle so that automatically makes it a completely different name.

Okay, back to Evil Tutter and the princess. When Boo Boo hears that Squeezy Whistle is searching for the Chosen One, he's thrilled - Squeezy will lead him right to the Chosen One, and then he will destroy both of them, heh heh heh…

The Cashew is approaching Jabber the Jaw's lair, but they're suddenly blocked from it by a moose in a spaceship named Tar-Tar the Third. He's a mighty galactic warrior and he has come to destroy Squeezy and his ship.

Sven from Frozen has joined the Dark Side, too?!

Fortunately, Tar-Tar is a massive idiot and thus Squeezy is able to defeat him quite easily. Sooooooooooooo… yeah, that character was totally necessary, wasn't he?

So after that, Squeezy and Nuke arrive at Jabber the Jaw's lair, which is some sort of weird nightclub filled with dancing chickens and rhinos. Jabber, as it turns out, looks like the crocodile from Peter Pan except he's pink. I'm guessing he's supposed to be the movie's Jabba the Hutt.

"I don't get no respect!"

Nuke tells Jabber to help them find Bongo Bananas, but Jabber says that he's currently hiding in a parallel dimension. But before he did, he trained two very special animals to take his place, but they both abandoned him. Nuke talks to Bongo Bananas again, and he says that he and Squeezy Whistle must come to him. But he must remember something, which is a problem because Nuke has a lousy memory. Ironic, what with him being an elephant and all...

Remember Tar-Tar? We cut back to him next. Turns out Boo Boo sent him to destroy Squeezy, and he's not too pleased to find out that he failed. "That makes me very, very angry, Tar-Tar!" Boo Boo shouts before he uses his powers of the sauce to blast Tar-Tar into the farthest space dimension. He decides that it's time he went out and destroyed Squeezy and the Chosen One himself.

Meanwhile, Nuke finally remembers the word that he was supposed to remember - "Bischamel". It teleports him and Squeezy to... Pandora from AVATAR?

Except much more poorly-rendered?

And there, they find Bongo Bananas himself. He's, I guess, the Obi-Wan Kenobi of the film. Or maybe he's supposed to be the Yoda, I don't know.

That's the ugliest CGI ape that I've ever seen.

Discount Rafiki says that he's been waiting in the shadows for the perfect moment to strike back and bring the galaxy back to a time of peace. Back to a time when the Nice Side and the Mice Side got along. But he accepted a traitor in their midst - Nuke! He tells Nuke that he's Princess Sparklefeather's brother and that he was destined for the throne, and thus he began to teach him the ways of the sauce. As the camera keeps spinning around, Bongo adds that he also wiped Nuke's memories because Nuke became too strong and powerful, and his strength made him drunk with power. He even created an army and tried to take over the whole "Zooverse". Seriously, would the camera stop spinning around? It's making me dizzy.

Fortunately, Bongo continues, he had been secretly training another warrior in the ways of the sauce - Boo Boo Squeaks. But then Boo Boo became evil too, and once he defeated Nuke discord among the animals was created. Oh, and as it turns out Nuke actually isn't the Chosen One. But the Chosen One IS within him. Inside his earlobe. His name is Felipo, and he's a flea.

Once they're back aboard the Cashew, Boo Boo lets them know via the... screen phone thing... that he's going to destroy them. He zaps them with a laser that apparently renders all of their weapons powerless. Fortunately, Felipo somehow got aboard Boo Boo's ship and is making the mouse itchy. "The power of the sauce has turned against you, Boo Boo Squeal!" Squeezy points out. Uh, technically, it's not the power of the sauce isn't defeating Evil Tutter, Felipo is. Just saying.

"Boy, this in-flight movie is terrible!"

So Felipo defeats Boo Boo with the power of tickling. "Finally, peace will reign among all animals. Big AND small," Nuke says. The Nice Side and the Mice Side agree to a truce. Princess Sparklefeather and Squeezy get married. But Boo Boo swears that the Zoo Wars are not over and that he will rise again, which I guess is supposed to be setting up for the aforementioned sequel that, again, I am not going to review. The end.

WHAT'S THE VERDICT?

This is a very bad film. Even worse than Garfield Gets Real. Like, this is on par with Foodfight! or Ratatoing. There is nothing redeemable about this film. The animation is awful and looks like a video game with zero budget. The characters are either bland, annoying, or both. The voice acting is crappy. The jokes are painfully unfunny. And there's also the tiny little fact that IT'S A BLATANT KNOCKOFF OF STAR WARS. Who was this even made for? I think even kids would find it lousy. I mean no disrespect towards anyone who worked on this, I'm sure they're all very nice people, but Zoo Wars is without a doubt one of the dumbest movies that I have ever seen. Don't watch it. Trust me, do not watch it.

Don't worry, next time I'll be reviewing something good to make up for how negative this review was.