Strange Wilderness

Strange Wilderness

Directed by Fred Wolf (R)

A stoner sets off on a journey to find Sasquatch and save his wildlife TV show.

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You’d have to be high to find Strange Wilderness funny, said Ken Fox in TV Guide. Produced by Adam Sandler, this “dismal” attempt at comedy stars Steve Zahn as Peter, a slacker who inherits his late father’s wildlife TV show and must save it from being canceled. Using a map of dubious provenance, Peter and his crew set off to locate Bigfoot. Strange Wilderness is “obviously the product of minimal effort by all parties involved,” said Joe Leydon in Variety. Director Fred Wolf and co-writer Peter Gaulke, both former Saturday Night Live writers, made the irrevocable mistake of extending a humorous parodic short to feature length. The movie feels like one of those SNL sketches that drags on for way too long. Wolf and Gaulke have gathered up an impressive cast of young comic actors, including Justin Long and Jonah Hill. But they’re mostly wasted in a “slovenly, slapped-together stoner comedy.” This humor’s not just stupid, it’s inappropriate, said Liz Braun in The Toronto Sun. The film goes from gross (a crew member vomits into a shark’s mouth) to puerile (Hill wears

a thong and zings his buddies’ privates with a joy buzzer) to just plain tasteless. If you want stoner humor, there’s far better than Strange Wilderness.