At one time, "Strange Wilderness" was one of the top outdoors/ animal shows in the country. After the death of the show's host, the job fell to his son, Peter (Steve Zahn). Though he possesses his father's passion, that's about all he has. His crew is made up of absent-minded stoners and what he knows about animals could fill a picture book. With the show's ratings plummeting, the network decides to cancel "Strange Wilderness" and replace it with another show. With only two weeks left before cancellation, Peter and the group search for a show idea that could either save them, or at least let them go out with a bang. Their break comes in the form of Bill Calhoun (Joe Don Baker), who sets them up with the location of Bigfoot's lair.
Like the show in the movie, Strange Wilderness is a mess. There are some really funny parts and the cast, which features usually funny actors like Jonah Hill, Justin Long and Kevin Heffernan (in addition to Robert Patrick and Ernest Borgnine), is usually pretty good. However, none of the actors are given much to do besides throw out a bunch of witless stoner and sex jokes. Strange Wilderness often confuses well-written, funny dialogue with numerous four-letter sentence modifiers. For me, this is always a sure sign of poor writing, or poor writers. And, if the language doesn't get to you, there are always the needless boob shots and, worse yet, Steve Zahn's package.
The only thing worse that watching the movie is watching the thirteen deleted scenes. Most are just expanded scenes and I had a hard time getting through the first three, much less thirteen. The Blu-ray version also ships with a short extra called "Cooker's Song" that goes into the development of one of the movie's musical scenes and "Reel Comedy," an extended interview with the cast and crew. Finally there's a behind-the-scenes look at the "turkey sequence," which proves to be as useless as the scene itself.
Strange Wilderness also stands as one of the poorer-quality Blu-ray transfers I've seen. Although it features a 1080p transfer, the entire presentation is subpar and inconsistent. Some scenes look sharp while others dull.
While the idea of going after nature shows is a good one, Strange Wilderness falls back on the idea that crude equals funny, leading it to try and find any excuse to throw in as many offensive gags and jokes as it can, even if it comes at the expense of the plot. Even fans of any of the cast will want to avoid Strange Wilderness.
