Let's Watch This - "The Wild Thornberrys Movie" (2002)

NOTE: Please do not take any of the little nitpicks in this review (or any of my other reviews, for that matter) seriously. I write these reviews in the hopes of making people laugh. Those nitpicks are really just dumb little observations that I'm attempting to make jokes out of, not complaints that add to whether or not I like something.

Anyone remember The Wild Thornberrys?

There's a very good chance that you do. It was Klasky-Csupo's third show for Nickelodeon (after Rugrats and Aaahh! Real Monsters), premiering in September 1998 and running for four seasons. It focused on a family of wildlife documentary filmmakers called the Thornberrys - younger daughter Eliza (voiced by Lacey Chabert), older daughter Debbie (Danielle Harris), feral adopted son Donnie (Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers), mother Marianne (Jodi Carlisle), pet chimpanzee Darwin (Tom Kane), and, of course, father Nigel (Tim Curry). Unbeknownst to the rest of the family, Eliza has the power to talk to animals, and she can't tell anyone about it or that power goes bye-bye.

The Wild Thornberrys isn't exactly one of Nickelodeon's more popular '90s shows nowadays... I mean, it's more well-known than something like The Brothers Flub, but you don't see it brought up much at all when Nickelodeon sheds some light on their '90s stuff. Did reruns of the show ever even air as part of that NickRewind block TeenNick had for a while? Regardless, the show did well enough for Nickelodeon to give it a theatrical movie - I believe it was, in fact, the second Nicktoon to get a movie, after Rugrats (well, third if we count Doug, but that movie was made after Disney got the rights to the show, so I don't think it counts).

The Wild Thornberrys Movie was released on December 20th, 2002. Directed by Cathy Malkasian and Jeff McGrath, the film did decently at the box office and received mostly positive reviews at the box office, but its biggest claim to fame is being the only movie based on a Nicktoon to be nominated for an Academy Award (specifically, it was nominated for Best Original Song), but is now basically a footnote in Nickelodeon history. I actually remember going to see this in theaters. I remember the marketing, too - all those ads that showed Eliza revealing to the evil poachers that she could talk to animals (yeah, spoiler alert), Donnie doing the "Wedgie Dance", Darwin asking a horse where the bathroom was... and yet, I don't think I've ever actually watched the film since seeing it in theaters.

Does the movie hold up, or should the Thornberrys have just stayed on the small screen? Well, let's find out. This is The Wild Thornberrys Movie. By the way, I should mention that I haven't watched an episode of The Wild Thornberrys in years. I hope that doesn't affect my opinion of the movie (it probably SHOULDN'T, because I remember liking the show well enough, but still...).

The movie starts off with the Thornberrys in their mobile home, the Comvee, driving across the African savannah. "I'm Eliza Thornberry," we heard Eliza's voice say. "Part of your average family... I've got a dad. And a mom. And a sister. There is Donnie... we found him. And Darwin, he found US. We travel all over the world." She gives some exposition about her dad hosting a nature show, and how one day she rescued a warthog that was actually a mystical shaman named Shaman Mynambo (Kevin Michael Richardson). He granted her the ability to talk to animals, but she can't tell anyone else who isn't an animal about it or the power will be taken away because... I don't know.

"Don't tell anyone, but we're actually just recreating the intro of the show. It helps fill
newcomers in on the premise AND also serves as a 'wink wink, nudge nudge' to those who HAVE
watched the show. Aren't we clever?"

I was wondering if the show ever said how Eliza got the power to talk to animals or if the movie was the first time we got an explanation for it. Like I said, I haven't watched the show in years, but I did check out the show's intro and, yep, it does indeed show a shaman granting Eliza the power to talk to animals. HOWEVER, there are some differences here. For example, the stuff about Eliza rescuing the shaman while he was disguised as a warthog was created for the movie, the show just has her stumbling upon the shaman and him giving her the Dr. Dolittle power for the heck of it. Also, the shaman in the show doesn't look anything like this Shaman Mynambo guy we see in the movie.

Anyway, after Eliza's exposition speech, we see a cheetah chasing after a herd of gazelle, and then we cut to Eliza and Darwin riding an elephant voiced by Cree Summer. Eliza's having a blast. Darwin complains about his butt falling asleep (ha ha ha, butts are funny, please laugh at us). Then Eliza notices that it's quiet... TOO quiet.

Did you know that elephants can't jump? Maybe you did, but I can't think of a
funny comment to make here and I figure that if I can't be funny, I should at least try
to be educational...

Back at the Thornberrys' campsite, we see that Eliza's grandmother (Lynn Redgrave) has paid them a visit, and that Donnie has been storing grubworms in their teapot. Eliza and Darwin run in and Eliza alerts everyone that there's a stampede coming their way. Yes, apparently total silence on the savannah = stampede's a-comin'.

Fortunately, the stampeders are those gazelle from before, and according to Nigel they're pretty harmless unless you're grass. Of course, one could say the same thing about wildebeest, or caribou, or bison, but if I saw a gigantic herd of 'em running my way I would probably freak out and get the heck out of there to avoid being, y'know, trampled.

"Ah, jeez, there's an old lady in our path."
"Just maneuver around her, guys. We've trained for this..."

The gazelle are immediately followed by the cheetah, who Eliza recognizes as a friend of hers, Akela (Alfre Woodard). Marianne and Nigel head off on their motorcycle to get some footage of cool animals, and Eliza heads off with a reluctant Darwin to see Akela's cubs - Tally (Kimberly Brooks) and two unnamed ones (Crystal Scales).

Guess which of these three cheetah cubs is the one with an important role in the plot.
Hint: it's the one with a weird Bart Simpson-esque hairstyle.

Eliza suggests that they have a race, but Akela thinks it'd be too dangerous for the cheetah cubs to be out in the savannah on their own. Eliza insists that she can trust her, so Akela relents, warning them not to go past the acacia tree. Guess what they do. No, really, guess.

Ee-yup. Eliza and the cubs wind up running past the acacia tree. Just barely, but still. Gee, I wonder if this is going to lead to one or more of the cheetah cubs getting into danger. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say "yes", because the most dangerous animal of all rears its ugly head: POACHERS.

And not just ANY poachers, no, no - FACELESS poachers. They're the most dangerous kind
of all!

I'm not even being sarcastic. Poachers are scum. You wanna know why so many animals are endangered? It's because of poachers. They kill elephants for their ivory tusks, leopards for their pelts, rhinos for their horns... all so they can sell those things and become rich. If you want to become rich so badly, there are a number of ways you can do it without slaughtering some innocent animal. Get a job! Take up painting! Buy a lottery ticket! Bottom line, there's a reason why poachers are more often than not the bad guys in animated movies about animals. Oh, sure, real life poachers probably don't sing cheery songs about how much they love capturing and murdering animals like the villain in The Rescuers Down Under, but they're not too different from him as a whole.

Whoa, sorry, didn't mean to get up on a soapbox there. Let's get back to the movie.

The poachers snatch up Tally as Eliza and Akela try to fight them off. It's a very intense scene... at least until we cut to Donnie doing the infamous "Wedgie Dance". Way to ruin the moment, Donnie. One minute ago we were focusing on a cheetah cub's life being in danger and now we have a kid shaking his butt at the camera. Talk about Mood Whiplash.

Imagine if in the first SpongeBob movie, during that creepy scene where Plankton brainwashed
everyone and captured Squidward it randomly cut to Patchy the Pirate doing the Macarena or something?

The rest of the Thornberrys manage to save Eliza just in time, but the poachers get away with Tally. Eliza is insistent that they have to save Tally, but Marianne and a... forest ranger, I think, I don't think they ever specify... named Jomo (Brock Peters) tell her that they have to leave the poacher-stopping to the professionals.

And that's when Debbie decides to be really unlikable and goes into a spiel about how Eliza's always sneaking off to go hang out with animals. "Did you know that she once fed one of my protein bars to a Komodo Dragon?! And back in... Whatever Land, wherever that was, she rode a Siberian tiger?! Oh, oh, and ask her about the time she was dancing with a bunch of crazy dingoes!" she says, probably referencing previous episodes of the show but I don't know for sure. Upon hearing this, the grandma declares that Eliza must have no regard for her own safety and needs to be in a "structured environment" - such as, for example, a boarding school back in London. Nigel thinks this is rather drastic, but the grandma reminds him that HE received HIS education in a boarding school as opposed to, y'know, out in the wild.

Also, Debbie for whatever reason is jealous of Eliza going to a boarding school. I've never been
to a boarding school myself, but aren't they, well, not fun?

"Mom, Dad, I can't leave!" Eliza protests. "Tally would've never been out in the plains if it weren't for ME! It's all my fault!" I appreciate that there's no "bad guy" in this scene - well, with the possible exception of the grandma, but even she expresses sympathy for Eliza. Nigel and Marianne are both very sad about sending Eliza to boarding school, but they're doing it because they're worried about her safety.

Later, Eliza laments to Darwin that this would all be a lot easier to resolve if she could just TELL her family that she can talk to animals. But, as we've stated before, she can't tell anyone that isn't an animal because... no, really, DO we ever get an explanation for that? Could somebody who's more familiar with the show fill me in?

Darwin doesn't take the "boarding school" thing well either, especially when he finds out that Eliza can't take him with her. Chimpanzees aren't allowed in boarding school... probably because they have no ape-titude. Ba-dum ksssh. After he runs off in a panic, Eliza and Nigel have a heart to heart. Nigel reminds Eliza that he once faced off against poachers to save an elephant. Again, this MIGHT be a reference to a previous episode of the show, it might not be, I don't know which. And speaking of elephants, there's an old legend Nigel's heard of about a solar eclipse that causes thousands of elephants to make their way to Tempo Valley. Why? NOBODY KNOWS. But there's an eclipse in a few weeks, and Nigel wants to see the great elephant migration firsthand.

You ever notice that Eliza's head is shaped like a peanut?

Nigel gives Eliza a medal that HE recieved in boarding school for saving a bunch of other students from a burning building. He only got a medal for that? Why wasn't he KNIGHTED or something? "You will face your own challenges, poppet," he tells her. "And I predict that you will meet them splendidly."

The next day, Eliza is flown to the boarding school in London. Upon arriving, she finds out that Darwin stowed away in her suitcase, then meets her roommate, Sarah Wellington (Melissa Greenspan). And, predictably, Sarah is a snob. I do hope that she'll warm up to Eliza by the third act of the movie.

I can't think of a funny comment to make about this screencap either, so... what do you call a
bonobo covered with fudge? A chocolate chimp. Thank you, I'll be here all night...

Eliza talks to some squirrels about what a lousy time she'd having, then we cut to some product placement for Pepsi.

I don't think this movie had any sort of marketing tie-in with Pepsi, so I'm not sure what the Pepsi
logo is doing in it. Maybe one of the animators just really liked Pepsi?

Nigel and Marianne are talking to Eliza on the phone. They tell her that Jomo hasn't found the poachers yet, and that they haven't found Darwin either. Oh, if only they knew...

Honestly, she could do worse for a roommate than Darwin. Imagine if her primate sidekick
was one of the Rocket Monkeys...

Debbie then grabs the phone to rant about how much she hates her life, then hangs up on Eliza. Fortunately, things improve for Eliza a little - the other girls at boarding school actually show interest in her encounters with wildlife. As for Darwin, he decides to disguise himself as another student. Because I really needed to see Darwin in drag. Thanks for that.

If she's a lady, I'm a Vermicious Knid.

And believe it or not, the other students actually FALL FOR IT. At least until Sarah yanks the hat off, revealing him to be an ape and resulting in a FOOD FIGHT!

Why are most of the screencaps I've taken so far of the chimpanzee?

Darwin is banished by the head teacher to the horse stables, leading to another scene that I remember being in most of the ads for the film - the one where Darwin asks the horse where the bathroom is. The horse's response? "You're STANDING on it!" - he's referring to the pile of hay that Darwin is perched on. Darwin screams in horror, which is an understandable response to hearing that one is standing in horse poop.

Also, the horse farts. Sheesh, did the SHOW have this much toilet humor in it?

"Do you know how many times I hear that 'Why the long face?' joke each day? Yesterday it was seven.
Today it was twelve. And the day BEFORE yesterday, it was nineteen. I get it. I'm a horse. I have a long
face. I just don't think the joke is that funny..."

Meanwhile, Eliza has really hit it off with the other girls. She tells them about the poachers and their abducting of Tally, and they want to help. One of them suggests having a bake sale. I'm not sure how that'll help find the poachers, but at least they're trying.

Incidentally, three of the schoolgirls are voiced by Tara Strong, Hynden Walch, and Mae Whitman. Just wanted to bring that up.

That night, Eliza has a strange dream where she encounters Shaman Mynambo, who has possessed a tree. He tells her to go save Tally.

"I am Groot!"

Eliza wakes up determined to save Tally. She convinces Sarah to buy her two plane tickets to Africa, then frees Darwin and the two of them sneak out and hop aboard a train, which takes them to the airport. The plane flies them to Africa, where they take another train to... I don't know where, exactly.

We cut back to the rest of the Thornberrys. Nigel and Marianne are headed off to Tempo Valley to see the elephants, leaving Debbie to look after Donnie. Nigel continues to be the best character in the movie, and Donnie does the "Wedgie Dance" again, this time accompanied by a pair of baboons.

And now, have a screencap of a baboon's butt. If I have to look at it, then you do too.

I am so, so sorry.

Eliza jumps off the train to help a rhinoceros who had a run-in with some poachers. Fortunately, a wildlife veterinarian and her husband shows up and helps her get the net off, and then Eliza notices that the net has a knife stuck in it that looks exactly like the one that the poacher who took Tally had. Then some forest rangers arrive. Eliza tells them all about the poachers and how the rhino said he ran into them at the river, but the husband says they were just at the river and there weren't any poachers. The rhino is taken to a rhino sanctuary, Eliza declines a lift from the couple because she's been taught not to take rides from strangers, and she and Darwin head off to find their family's camp as a Youssou N'Dour song plays in the background.

That night, Debbie and Donnie are visited by their grandmother, now with their grandfather (also Tim Curry) in tow. The grandma tells Debbie that Eliza ran away from boarding school, and Nigel continues to be the best character in the movie even when only heard on the radio. He's that great a character.

Cut back to Eliza and Darwin. They hitch a ride with an ox, and eventually arrive back at the camp. Debbie fills her in as to what I just said one paragraph ago, and Eliza is all "I'm not going back to England! I'm going to find Tally!" and looks up the coordinates for where their parents are on a laptop. Debbie complains, "Ugh, what is wrong with you?! You finally get a chance to escape our rolling jail, and instead you come crawling back like some freaky homing pigeon! You ruined the family name, and wrecked my chance of ever getting out of this place! I don't know about YOU, but I am not going to slow dance at my prom with some purple-butt BABOON!"

Honestly, though, I don't think even a baboon would agree to go to the prom with Debbie. Ohhhhhhhhhhh, snap.

Why are blondes in Nickelodeon shows always so obnoxious?

Eliza manages to lock Debbie in a cage (Debbie originally built it for Donnie claiming it was a playpen, for those wondering why that the cage was doing there) and runs off. Alas, Debbie escapes and pursues her via motorcycle. Incidentally, I should mention that EVERY SINGLE VEHICLE SEEN IN THIS MOVIE is done in cel-shaded CGI. The Comvee, the motorcycle, the plane... all cel-shaded CGI. And it sticks out like a sore thumb against the hand-drawn animation.

Grandma calls up Mariane and Nigel to tell them that both of their daughters are missing. As is Donnie, who followed Eliza. Also, the elephants have begun their migration. I bring this up because I remember it being important during the movie's climax.

Here's another ape joke: what do you get when you cross a gorilla with an army general?
Give up? GORILLA warfare! That was kind of funny, right?

Eliza, Donnie, and Darwin run into a gorilla who tells them that he saw a helicopter land, and two people came out of that helicopter and started putting a fence around the valley. Oh, no, the poachers are building a gated community!

After a scene with the grandparents assuring Marianne that their kids will be fine because she raised them so well, Debbie runs afoul of two angry warthogs. I'm not sure what they plan on doing to her, seeing as warthogs are herbivores and therefore couldn't want to eat her...

Not exactly Pumbaa, are they?

The warthogs are scared off by a tribe of natives, who take Debbie in. Okay, let's see where they're going with this... oh, wait, never mind. We cut back to Eliza, Donnie, and Darwin coming across that couple from before, who say that they're there to count the elephant population. Eliza realizes that the poachers must be after the elephants - "They stay in the forest... except during the eclipse! Oh, the poachers must've heard the legend!" she says. They can't call Jomo because their radio is on the fritz, so the couple says they'll find Eliza's parents in the morning and use THEIR radio.

Then we cut back to the natives. Debbie introduces them to "modern" things like soda and digital watches, then she heads off with a native boy to find Eliza. I gotta say, I'm very relieved that the natives aren't portrayed as bumbling idiots or savages like they usually are in cartoons. That would've been incredibly racist.

Meanwhile, Eliza, Donnie, and Darwin go inside the couple's RV and discover some interesting things inside... high-tech equipment, elephant tusks, and Tally in a cage! Yeah, spoiler alert: the couple? They're the poachers. I honestly saw this coming. And yes, they do have names - the husband's name is Sloan Blackburn (Rupert Everett), and the wife's name is Bree (Marisa Tomei).

"I should've known! Cartoon characters who sound like Rupert Everett are ALWAYS evil!"

So what is the poachers' plan? Well, in addition to making a coat out of Tally (it'd probably be a very small coat, seeing as he's just a cub), that fence they put up is an ELECTRIC fence. When the elephants get near it, they'll be zapped, killing them all! Jeez, this goes beyond even being a POACHER. This is, like, super-villain levels of evil.

It's because of people like these two that we get movies like Animals United.

Sloan ties up Eliza, Donnie, and Darwin and starts interrogating Eliza. "You know far too much for a little girl," he snarls. "I have too much invested in this operation to let anything get in my way..." As soon as he leaves, Tally tries to free Eliza, and Darwin starts chewing her out for getting them into this mess. He even accuses her of not knowing what to do with her powers. Eliza agrees with me and tells him to be quiet.

Debbie shows up just as Tally manages to free Eliza - and promptly gets put in a headlock by Sloan. He'll only let her go if Eliza gives him her source of information. "TELL ME OR SHE GOES OVER THE EDGE!" he barks, dragging her over to a cliff. And here is is. The moment you KNEW was coming as soon as Darwin brought up that Eliza can't tell anyone human she can talk to animals. To save Debbie, Eliza confesses that she can talk to animals. This causes some sort of magic windstorm thing to take her talking to animals ability away. The poachers get away, and Eliza, Debbie, Tally, Darwin, and Donnie wind up floating down a river on a log.

Since this wasn't the series finale, I'm pretty sure Eliza is indeed going to get her "talking to animals" power back. But for now, she's lamenting that the last thing she said to Darwin was "really mean", even though Darwin honestly kind of deserved it. But she has worse problems now... specifically, an approaching waterfall because all rivers in animation lead to waterfalls.

No exceptions.

Well, the good news is, they've arrived in the Tempo Valley. More good news - they find the elephants.

On the downside, they're marching right towards the poachers' trap. Eliza laments that she can't warn them because she can't talk to them. "I'm just an ordinary girl now..." she moans. Debbie reminds her that when she was little, she would bring home injured birds and toads and help them even though she didn't have magic powers yet. She just CARED.

But there's no time for more pep talk, the poachers are about! Not just Sloan and Bree, no, no - a whole BUNCH of them, setting up explosives to frighten the elephants, causing them to stampede right into the electric fence! Fortunately, Nigel, Marianne, and the grandparents are nearby, and Nigel ain't having none of that!

Eliza heads down to somehow stop the elephants from walking into the fence. Eventually, she manages to jump onto one's head.

And you thought that scene of Eliza riding an elephant earlier in the movie wasn't important, didn't you?

Nigel and the grandpa, meanwhile, start cutting the explosives' wires, but the poachers still manage to set off a few, causing the elephants to stampede. Eliza jumps from elephant to elephant until she reaches the one at the front of the herd. And then she remembers that medal Nigel gave her. She throws it at the fence, setting it off just before the elephants can make contact with it. It works! The elephants stop!

…for a few seconds, at least. Then the explosives go off again and the elephants start moving. Then Eliza remembers something that the Cree Summer-voiced elephant from before told her about elephants - you can turn one around by touching behind its ear. So she does that.

So, problem solved, right? The elephants are walking away from the fence... oh, wait. Sloan grabs Eliza.

Wah wah wah wah waaaaaaaaaaaaah...

"Shame you won't be here to help me carry out the ivory!" Sloan snaps before tossing Eliza into the river. Then he goes after the elephants, but they aren't going down without a fight - they grab the rope ladder of his helicopter with their trunks, bringing it down. Elephants: one. Sloan: nada.

Eliza, meanwhile, goes over the waterfall but is saved by Shaman Mynambo. Good thing he happened to be nearby. "I'm sorry," she tells him. "I messed everything up. I couldn't make them understand." But Shaman Mynambo shows her that she DID save the elephants - not with her GIFT, but with her HEART. "If this is what you can do without your powers, you have a greater destiny than I'VE even known," he says. Thus, he's going to give her back the ability to talk to animals. There is one condition, though - how well can Debbie keep a secret?

Oh, and in case you're wondering about the poachers, they get cornered by the elephants, Nigel, Marianne, Jomo, and a bunch of forest rangers. So, so satisfying to watch...

Here's another joke for you: how many elephants does it take to beat the crap out of a poacher?
Answer: I don't know, but there's no such thing as too many.

The poachers are arrested, Eliza is reunited with her family, Tally makes it back to HIS family, and we get the revelation that if Debbie tells anyone about Eliza's being able to talk to animals, she'll turn into a baboon. Or maybe Eliza's just messing with Debbie, it's ambiguous.

Now, how are we going to end this movie? How about with everyone getting down to some FUN-KAY music with a bunch of baboons?

I think I know where the folks who made My Gym Partner's a Monkey got their inspiration from...

What's the Verdict?

Honestly, for a movie based on a show that I haven't watched in years, I really liked this.

I think it probably stems from the fact that I love animals, and so seeing a movie dedicated to talking about how important it is to save them from poachers makes me feel good. But this movie genuinely does feel like an epic adventure, even moreso than The Rugrats Movie does - and the best way to do a movie based on a cartoon show, in my opinion, is to send the characters on an epic adventure. There are a lot of really heartfelt scenes, some great voice acting, and a few genuinely funny jokes (most of what Nigel says is either hilarious or awesome). If I do have one complaint, it's that Darwin and Debbie can both get kind of annoying, but I could stomach them fine for the most part. Also, waaaaaaaaaay too many jokes about butts.

If you're a fan of The Wild Thornberrys but haven't seen this movie yet, I highly recommend seeking it out. If you haven't seen the show, well, I'd check it out first and THEN watch the movie. As for me, I'm definitely going to rewatch the show since I liked this movie so much.

Oh, and by the way... this wasn't the Thornberrys' only time on the big screen. The very next year, they met up with Klasky-Csupo's most iconic creations of all, the Rugrats. But we'll look at that movie another time.