Rent Fierce Creatures (1997)

Disappointing Comedy - Fierce Creatures review by GI

A disappointing follow up to the hugely successful A Fish Called Wanda (1988) bringing together the four key stars from that film and a host of other actors who appeared in it. Unfortunately the ingredients failed to recreate the magic and what we have here is a sort of Carry On formula with the ensemble comedy cast, slapstick set pieces and a plot where hopeless and daft characters win over a nasty guy. In short a small zoo in England staffed by a bunch of animal lovers is taken over by a huge corporation run by an unpleasant billionaire clearly based on Rupert Murdoch right down to the Australian accent. He's played by Kevin Kline who gets two roles this time around and also plays the boss' son. The zoo is losing money so closure is on the cards so the manager played by John Cleese and staff come up with various silly and zany schemes to save it assisted by Jamie Lee Curtis who runs around with a big cleavage and short skirt!. The real problem is it's just not that funny and it would have been better served as an extended Monty Python sketch, indeed Michael Palin simply plays an annoying , boring geek like he has dome many a time before in Python sketches. It's a shame but better writing and plot ideas may have produced comedy gold but it's not here I'm afraid.