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Fierce Creatures

Fierce Creatures

List Price: $14.98
Your Price: $13.48
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Funny and worth it in its own right
Review: I've three things to say about this movie:

1. Anything with Michael Palin is worth renting or buying.

2. Too bad this movie suffers from the inevitable "Fish Called Wanda" comparisons. "Fish" appears in many "Top 10 Comedies of All Time" lists. In comparison, "Fierce Creatures" is just a clever little movie. Accept it at that and you'll have a lovely time. These four actors know comedy.

3. Kevin Kline as the Rupert Murdoch-like takeover artist? Maybe the most side-splitting characterization ever seen on film. Why don't more people talk about that portrayal? It's astoundingly great acting. You could watch the scene where he "does the deal" 20 times in a row and laugh every time. Just the best.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: British humor at a zoo
Review: If you like British humor you would love this.I think this is as good as the funniest Monty Python skits.This is really good British comedy.I think this is just as hilarious as Austin Powers,more than Bean,and way more that Bob and Margret.You have to see this film.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Not "A Fish Called Wanda"
Review: It's not A Fish Called Wanda, and that's a good thing because it's a different movie. If it were a sequel, people would still complain as sequels are "never as good as the original". Both "Fish" and Fierce Creatures are comedies but in completely different ways. Whereas "Fish" is a more adult comedy using hilarious sexual situations and harsh language, "Fierce" has more of a Monty Python flavor of lunacy. I find Fierce Creatures the funnier of the two, but A Fish Called Wanda is the better made movie. If you're a Monty Python fan, I recommend this highly. If you're not, you need to rethink your values and hop onto the British humor bandwagon and stop filling your head with the infantile "gross-out" drivel that's so popular right now.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: "Creatures" is lovable and cuddly
Review: John Cleese, best known for his turns in Monty Python and Fawlty Towers, stars in a hilarious comedy centering on the lack of all that is cute and cuddly. With a great supporting cast and an ever-growing level of mindless farce, this is a great time-waster.

The movie opens with Willa Weston (Jamie Lee Curtis) coming to work at Octopus Inc., a massive multi-corporation owned by the semi-psychopath Rod McCain, or as he is known there, "Rod Almighty." Willa has to deal with the devious associate Neville (Bille Brown) and McCain's annoying son Vince (Kevin Kline, who also plays Rod), who spends a great deal of time trying to seduce her. She petitions Rod to let her manage a zoo he acquired in England, and gets to go -- if she brings Vince with her.

In England, new director Rollo Lee displays a new moneymaking tactic to the dismayed animal keepers: Only dangerous animals are allowed at the zoo, and anything cute, cuddly, herbivorous, and unable to bite off major appendages is history. The keepers desperately try to convince him that anteaters, bandicoots, tarantulas and lemurs can be vicious, unaware that he is secretly keeping the animals in his home.

But things degenerate even further when Vince and Willa arrive. Vince despises animals unless they entertain him, and soon turns the zoo into a mess of weird costumes and media endorsements. Willa and Rollo dig deeper into shady dealings and corporate psychosis -- only to have a new mess of problems rear their ugly heads.

The cast for this movie is truly inspired: Cleese plays the desperate, Basil-Fawlty-esque director of the zoo, who has a secret soft spot for animals while trying to maintain the appearance of toughness. Michael Palin plays a motormouthed tarantula keeper with encyclopedic knowledge on everything. Kevin Kline plays both father and son so well that it's almost astonishing that Rod and Vince aren't played by different people. Ronnie Corbett is a lesser but still hilarious as the tiny Reggie Sea Lions.

The humor is outrageously funny, especially when it is either clever or farcical: Vince and Willa hearing Rollo's frantic words to the animals: "Get off the bed!" "Ow, don't pull!" "Stop licking my-" and "Go play with each other!"; the hide-the-body sequence late in the film, which has a frenzied energy that will make people roll in the aisles; the keepers faking elaborate injuries; the scene where Terry the tarantula gets loose, causing Cub and Rollo to desperately strip off in a closet; a repeat of Cleese's "light switch" joke; and the following scene where Willa looks into the half-naked Rollo's room, finds a sheep and a pair of very embarrassed women, one of them half-naked as well, and comes to the obvious conclusion. And the scene where police officers are assaulted by zookeepers in big stupid-looking animal costumes is absolutely priceless.

What is not funny? Well, the fart jokes got old before they even started. And Jamie Lee Curtis lacks any amusing qualities whatsoever: she doesn't have a funny moment in the entire movie. While every other character has some individual quirks or humiliating moments that make them more human and understandable, Willa Weston doesn't. She's a plastic Barbie doll. Which brings up another pet peeve: So much attention is paid to Willa flashing her cleavage at Vince and Rollo. Her role could have easily been filled by a Wonderbra. She's a far cry from Carey Lowell's Cub, a smart, pretty and active woman who maintains the respect of the viewers. And the sentimental flashes only bog down the plot, such as Curtis's reminiscing about a gorilla.

Despite these flaws, "Fierce Creatures" is a hilarious comedy that, though it sags a bit in the middle, becomes outrageously funny near the end. Cleese, Kline and Palin are at their best here, and you'll walk away with a new appreciation for the shooting skills of lemurs.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: What a waste of Robert Lindsay's talents!
Review: Not to mention Kline's, Cleese's, Palin's and Leigh-Curtis's.......but to drop Lindsay into this nothing role and abandon him is beyond forgiveness!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: HILARIOUS. A MUST-SEE MOVIE, AND A PURE DELIGHT!
Review: Once I saw this film in the theater, I knew I had to own it. I suggest, if you like truely smart comedy that provides belly laughs, you must see this wonderful film. I am suprised it did so grimly at the box-office, although it did very well overseas. Also, if you like Monty Python, you must watch. It is at times satirical, at times parody, and at times, just crude humor to balance it out. Kevin Kline is extremely funny, and walks away with the film from the opening credits on. He is a truly gifted actor, and makes an ordinarily delightful movie excellent. NOTE: This is NOT a sequel to A fish called Wanda. It does have the same cast, but has a comlpetely different storyline. Also, the premise is completely original, and is not so formulatic like so many other comedies. If you're looking for a great movie to rent or buy, choose this, and I promise, you WILL NOT be dissapointed with your choice.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Kline is very good but Cleese and Curtis aren't in bad form.
Review: Only four stars because one tends to compare it with "A FISH CALLED WANDA" (wich is perfect slapstick), but if it was'nt for that could have rated five stars.
Anyway a good laugh without been overtly offensive or gross (quite a trick nowadays mind...)

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Kline is very good but Cleese and Curtis aren't in bad form.
Review: Only four stars because one tends to compare it with "A FISH CALLED WANDA" (wich is perfect slapstick), but if it was'nt for that could have rated five stars.
Anyway a good laugh without been overtly offensive or gross (qite a trick nowadays mind...)

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Ferociously funny!
Review: Rollo Lee (John Cleese) is a newly-appointed Zoo Director who's been told in no uncertain terms that he must make the venture profitable. Rollo quickly concludes that the only way to start the cash flow is to display only the most savage of animal attractions. He calls a meeting with the zookeepers and tells them: "From now on in this zoo we require only animals that are potentially violent. Fierce animals! I want a lethal weapon in every cage!" Loveable lemurs, meek meerkats, and pacifist penguins are all made to fool the public into believing that they are, indeed, fierce creatures. Classic Cleese.

Staci Layne Wilson
Author of Staci's Guide to Animal Movies


Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Fiercely Painful
Review: The acting of the talented John Cleese and Michael Palin cannot save this movie, which lacks even a single funny moment. The movie's premise -- pretend that tame zoo animals are fierce to attract visitors and increase profitability -- is bad enough, but the dialogue is about the worst I've ever heard. Jamie Lee Curtis can be excellent, but she is terrible here because of the abysmal script. The same sexual jokes are repeated over and over, and when Kevin Kline passes gas over and over, the viewer is reminded not of Blazing Saddles but of a moviemaker attempting to force a laugh when there is nothing to laugh about. Save your money.


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