'Wild America': The Nature of the Least

If your idea of a good time is to watch Jonathan Taylor Thomas being carried through the woods in the antlers of a fake moose obviously mounted to a pickup truck just out of camera range, then, boyoboy, will you like "Wild America."

For the rest of us, the film represents another lost hour and a half at the movies.

One can see how the kernel of the story attracted professional filmmakers: Underneath it all, it's the tale of three rural brothers -- Marshall, Mark and Marty Stouffer, of Fort Smith, Ark. -- who yearn for more. They set out to become nature photographers without much in the way of experience, capitalization or equipment, and bumble through a series of woodsy adventures on the road, which teach them acute life lessons. Of course two of them grow up to become the producers of the "Wild America" television show and the third the producer of . . . this movie.

But their adventures are so crudely imagined that most restless children will see right through them. Every single time they go into the woods, they run into exotic animals, people and adventures in about three seconds. The movie, ostensibly a chronicle of nature, has no patience at all for the processes of nature: It's cut like a music video, with stuff just happening really fast.

The boys -- Taylor is the younger one, the cuddly Marshall, while Devon Sawa plays Mark and Scott Bairstow plays Marty -- hardly register. The animal behavior all seems fake and the boys, who constantly risk danger, are left unscratched. They're not talented at all; they learn no lessons, either about photography or animals. They're just lucky as all get out.

Wild America is PG rated and contains no objectionable sequences, unless stupidity offends you.