Despite the built-in marketing advantage of being the successor to the second-highest-grossing British film ever, Fierce Creatures arrives with a cart full of problematic luggage. First is the issue of its not being a sequel to Wanda. From the beginning, the filmmakers have (naturally) exploited the Wanda connection while taking pains to explain that, no, these aren't the same characters, just the same actors. (How much do you want to bet that most potential customers still assume it's a sequel?)
Second, and more important, are the movie's production problems. It's no secret that early test screenings were so bad that major reshooting had to be done nearly a year later. The original director, Robert Young--not to be confused with the better-known American, Robert M. Young, director of Caught and Dominick and Eugene--was replaced by Fred Schepisi (A Cry in the Dark), who, Roxanne notwithstanding, hardly seems the obvious choice for a (more or less) screwball comedy.
I was never quite as knocked out by Wanda as the rest of the world, so it's pleasant to say that I found Fierce Creatures far funnier--much more in the gentle tradition of the '50s Ealing comedies than Wanda, featuring the sort of ensemble of lovable eccentrics that was a hallmark of those older classics.
The story starts when Rod McCain (Kevin Kline)--an evil Australian magnate, clearly patterned on Rupert Murdoch--finds among that day's acquisitions a small British zoo. Since Rod requires that each of his operations generate at least a 20-percent annual return, a figure the zoo doesn't even approach, he dispatches Hong Kong TV exec Rollo Lee (John Cleese) to take over the facility.
Rollo immediately tries to assert his authority by playing the tough guy: Since the public wants entertainment with violence, the zoo must immediately get rid of all nonfierce creatures. And when the angry zookeepers tell him there is no place to which they can transfer the unwanted animals, Rollo shows he means business by taking five of the most adorable beasties out back and shooting them.
Well, actually, he pretends to shoot them. I'm not giving much away here: You and I both know that in a film of this sort, there's no way the hero is going to dispatch five cuddly, big-eyed animals. No, the sentimental Rollo has actually allowed all five the run of his bedroom, barely leaving room for himself.
Just as the zoo folk are beginning to realize what a big softy Rollo really is, his authority is undercut by the arrival of Vince McCain (Kline again), Rod's idiot son, and ambitious manager Willa Weston (Jamie Lee Curtis). Willa sees an opportunity to make the zoo a model for a chain of theme parks, while Vince is more concerned with getting Willa into bed.
Much in the manner of Wanda, Fierce Creatures has Curtis warming up to Cleese while fending off the moronic Kline. In general, the characters--while not as close to their Wanda equivalents as, say, the variously named Hope and Crosby characters in one Road film after another were to each other--follow the same general pattern as in Wanda. Cleese's Rollo is a bit more pathetic (and somewhat better drawn) than barrister Archie was. Palin once again plays a sort of sweet-natured sad sack, though this time, instead of having a stutter so bad he can barely speak, he's a garrulous know-it-all who simply can't shut up. (Presumably the producers made sure that there is no National Logorrheics Association to get upset over the portrayal.)
On the whole, the nastier edge of Wanda's humor has been softened here. Only Rod is thoroughly loathsome. (Would that this had been a Fox project! One wonders whether Murdoch, true to form, would have distributed this vicious lampooning of himself if he thought it would make money. Rod McCain would have.) Kline's dual role makes the character's viciousness more acceptable: The most extreme scenes involve Kline (as one McCain) attacking himself (as the other).
It would be nice if this gang of players could get their next collaboration a bit sooner. Cleese and Palin, the oldest of the four, clearly show the passage of the years, although, remarkably, Kline and Curtis don't. (Blame it on British cooking.) But there is definitely a comic dynamic among the quartet--particularly between Cleese and Kline. In his Monty Python days, Cleese specialized in two types: self-possessed bureaucrats and gentlemen ("The Argument Clinic" and "The Pet Shop") and the dangerously deranged (the Dirty Fork sketch and "Self-Defense"). In his films, he has externalized his mad aspects and given them to Kline's characters, while keeping his harassed, middle-class aspects for himself. The two provide a tension that could profitably power several more films.
Fierce Creatures.
Starring John Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline, Michael Palin, Ronnie Corbett, Robert Lindsay, and Carey Lowell. Written by Cleese and Iain Johnstone. Directed by Robert Young and Fred Schepisi. Starts Friday.
