Top 10 Animal Films (exempting Animated fare)

So no 'Watership Down', 'The Secret of NIMH', 'Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were Rabbit' or 'Tarzan' here because I wanted to narrow things down and save my thoughts on them for a future 'All-Time Greatest Animated Films' post. Also I really need to watch 'Grizzly Man'.

Hon. Mention: Big Fish

Okay it's not really about a Big Fish, at least, not in the way you think, but I'll just mention it here because I love the film and always like giving it a shout out one way or the other.

10. King Kong (2005 version...I haven't seen the 1930's classic yet)

A rousing if kind of flawed effort from Peter Jackson. His first post-Lord of the Rings gig and though you can definitely detect traces of problems that would soon emerge from his style here (the perplexing way in which side characters built up with so much promise are chucked aside for the third act like in The Hobbit series, strange and not always succesful attempts at humour like The Lovely Bones), Nevertheless for the most part it's a pretty entertaining action movie brought vividly to life by some fantastic set pieces, impressive sound effects, and the great old school leading lady Hollywood work of Naomi Watts, and how she manages to create a realistically moving connection with a CGI ape (Andy Serkis mo-cappin'). And Kong manages to be both sweet and fairly badass.

9. Seabiscuit

An old-fashioned, feel-good underdog story (starring Tobey Maguire in the lead role no less) that doesn't try to disguise itself as anything but what it is, a crowd-pleaser. And it does its job well. It's not quite the Rocky of equestrian sports, and I will admit to slightly cringing at several of the schmaltzier bits, but overall it works tremendously well in setting the audience in its very specific time and place, It's cliched but works with these cliches in a way that's very inspirational and manages to turn the sport into something quite poetic to watch onscreen.

8. Stuart Little

Is it faithful to the source material? Not exactly. In fact, not at all, the only thing they took was literally the idea of a mouse being adopted by a human family. I don't really care because quite frankly a straightforward adaptation of the book would be a bit tricky to handle with its rather languid pace and ambiguous ending. The film is just a very sweet family film. The Littles are every bit the lovable suburbanites you want them to be and the whole odd family is directed around with a very nicely earnest tone, that makes their blossoming love for one another fun to watch. My favourite part of the film will always be of course, the interactions between Stuart (Michael J. Fox) and Snowbell (Nathan Lane) gradually growing from antagonism into a genuine fondness for one another.

7. Life of Pi

Visually stunning, narratively compelling, it does have a few long meandering stretches but overall is a very impressive adaptation of a fairly complex novel. As I've mentioned it looks absolutely great, the 'past' scenes are so well done as they evoke the feeling of being lost at sea so vividly, creating a little world of its own within the surroundings. It also packs quite the emotional punch by giving each of its animal characters such individuality and making us care for them every bit as much as 'Pi', our protagonist played wonderfully by Suraj Sharma. The present-day scenes aren't nearly as good but still, more than adequate.

6. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

Okay so not exactly an animal film so to speak...but it does involve a sea monster so there's that. This is one of the finest examples of a seafaring movie done right. James Mason's fantastic lead performance, my personal favourite of his performances, rightfully dominates the film, but there's so much else to admire besides that. The set design is well ahead of its time as are the effects, the atmosphere of the crew and life on the boat is impeccably handled, it balances humour and tension perfectly and even manages to generate some fascinating food for thought on where the line should be drawn between ambition and obsession.

5. March of the Penguins

I have yet to find anything with Morgan Freeman voicing an animal, but having him do a voiceover describing the exploits of a whole herd of emperor penguins is more than enough. Actually it's a downright brilliant idea. Anyway, penguins are cute, which kind of makes this an easy film to life from the outset, but it's also brilliantly shot, very informative, and manages to make you deeply care for the animals beyond just finding them delightful creatures, and emotionally invests you whenever things go right or wrong for them (one a sidenote, aren't filming these kinds of documentaries somewhat traumatising seeing as you have to watch so much horrible stuff happen to the animals?)

4. Babe

Ah the film that put multitudes off bacon indefinitely. Well I can't say it did for me but then again, I rarely use my film and literary tastes to direct my dietary tastes, bar wanting a full English breakfast after watching the opening of Withnail and I and trying to find out what on earth Turkish Delight was after reading The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. Anyway, Babe is an extraordinarily sweet tale of a little piggy who doesn't want to become family dinner, wackily deciding that he'll be a sheepdog in pig's clothing and dabble in the profession of getting silly sheep to follow his lead. Now it might sound like I'm making jest about this film's merits but I assure you, I genuinely do love it. Its animal CGI is so well done and for once the MOUTHS MOVE PERFECTLY WITH THE DIALOGUE and the voices fit each of the characters (let's see how the cast of The Jungle Book fare when I watch it tomorrow). It tells a simple story with such genuine passion and really makes you root for our Babe with all our hearts.

Plus, Farmer Hoggett is awesome. 

3. Jurassic Park

Before the franchise became something of a joke (and yes I do think that Jurassic World was a joke, I couldn't take a second of that seriously and I'm not just talking about the high heels running scene), it's easy to forget how great the first Jurassic Park was. Before the lame reprisals attempting to capture the magic of the first film, Speilberg managed to make a film that was both appealing to adults and suitable for children (to an extent). Its human characters are well-fleshed enough, in particular Jeff Goldblum's hilarious eccentric turn (what they did with his character in The Lost World is best left forgotten) and Richard Attenborough (I once watched this and 10 Rillington Place back-to-back and it really is testament to his abilities that he's able to play essentially opposites so well).

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Also a clip of Jeff Goldblum Goldblum-ing

But enough about that, the true star of the film are the dinosaurs, and they're great. Not just from a aesthetic perspective, of course they look fantastic, but also the way they're employed; either to heighten tension or add grandeur, their effect always hits the mark.

2. Harvey

Before Roger Rabbit, there was...Harvey. Only Harvey's not real. Or is he?

That's the question at the heart of Harvey, an adaptation of a highly succesful play and brought to screen beautifully by James Stewart's wonderful performance, one of his very best, as Elwood P. Dowd, what you might call a most eccentric and amiable middle-aged fellow whose defining traits are that he's just an all-round swell, generous, unprejudiced, likes his drink (although any theme of alcoholism is sort of brushed over by the film) and has a 6'3 tall rabbit friend. Now I completely understand how some people might find this film a bit of an oddity and dislike it for it, but I love it. It's just so funny in a most pleasant sort of way, from Josephine Hull's hilarious supporting turn to the whole cast of kindly and bumbling lasses and lads just wanting to help Elwood, and of course the central dynamic between Elwood and Harvey which is just so darn funny and sweet, all handled by the cumulative work of the greatest actor of all-time, and an excellent script.

1. Jaws

One of the greatest films of all-time. Period. So many factors were going against this film, and it seemed like it was going to be a disaster. Inexperienced director by the name of Steven Speilberg. The three leads constantly getting into conflicts with one another, with Robert Shaw and Richard Dreyfuss in particular getting at it in a way that actually comes through quite effectively through the film. The shark, the shark in a film called JAWS, malfunctioning and being only of limited use.

And it ended up being one of the most successful blockbusters of all-time, that literally redefined a multitude of genres. You know a shark movie is good when the most praiseworthy elements aren't even the shark itself, physically. Rather its the use of music, excellent screenwriting, implication and crafty camerawork that makes the shark as imposing a villain and memorable an adversary to our central trio of heroes, who are all fantastic: Roy Scheider's understated work as Chief Brody, Richard Dreyfuss' ridiculously entertaining snobbish scientist routine, and of course Robert Shaw's amazing work as Quint the shark hunter (which shall feature in my next post). Speilberg's never bettered his work here since and he's done some masterpieces, so all in all, all I can say about this film is that if you want the perfect example of a troubled film production bringing into frution something truly great, watch Jaws.