‘Call of the Wild’ goes digital

It may not be a dog but this adaptation of a Jack London novel stakes out a mediocre claim.

In The Call of the Wild, an adaptation of a classic Jack London story, the heroic dog at the center of the movie has become a digital creation. But it’s not only the dog that doesn’t seem real. The same goes for the Yukon town where the dog — Buck — winds up and for much of the movie’s romanticized sentiment. In Alaska, Buck learns to become a true part of nature, joining forces with wolves and creating a family.

Harrison Ford takes the starring human role; he’s John Thornton, a man who has fled to the Yukon after the death of his young son wrecked his marriage and his life.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. When we first meet Buck, he belongs to a judge in a small California town. Banished to the judge's porch, the unruly Buck is stolen and shipped to Alaska, the wilderness where a gold rush has created a growing need for sled dogs.

Initially, Buck is trained to pull sleds by a mailman played by Omar Sy. Sy's character travels with a woman (Cara Gee), who seems to around so that she can fall through thin ice and be rescued by the always heroic Buck.

Buck becomes a leader among the mail-service dogs but eventually loses his status when the government suspends mail delivery to remote towns that are hundreds of miles apart.

Harrison's Thornton immediately appreciates the dog's finer nature but only reluctantly forms a bond with Buck. Meanwhile, a wealthy man in search of even more wealth (Dan Stevens) tries to exploit Buck. Steven’s character becomes a classic boo-hiss villain.

The story goes exactly where you'd expect as Buck and Thornton begin life in the woods, but this version lacks the kind of grit we might expect from a story by London. It feels bloodless.

Heavyweight cinematographer Janusz Kaminski (Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, The Post) does justice by the Alaskan scenery and it's no surprise that Ford holds the screen. But even Ford can’t elevate this one from the mediocrity to which its tethered — or should I say leashed.

The dog’s movements reportedly were created in motion-capture by Terry Notary, who's known for his creation of animal movements. He does good work but I seldom forgot that I was looking at a digital creation rather than a living, breathing slobbering animal.

Call of the Wild did make me think about the advantages of digital dogs, though. They don't poop. They don't throw up on the rug. They don't need to be walked. Vet bills are negligible.

Unconvinced? Me too. Both on-screen and off, real dogs are better.

Lame drama, but food looks great

Burnt features Bradley Cooper as a narcissistic chef.

Someone needs to explain to me why I should want to spend time with an obnoxiously narcissistic chef who's trying to make a comeback in London after having undermined a skyrocketing career in Paris.

But wait, maybe the answer has something to do with the fact that said chef is the main character in a movie called Burnt, and he's played by a fashionably bestubbled Bradley Cooper.

Burnt, the plot of which I've just described, can't rise above its many problems even with Cooper portraying a culinary hotshot who thinks he's better than everyone else -- and probably would be if it weren't for the drug and alcohol problems that derailed his rise.

Turns out the best thing about this John Wells directed movie, set in the upper echelons of London's foodie culture, is the food, photographed with glossy slickness by cinematographer Adrinao Goldman.

When the camera focuses on the meals that Cooper's Adam Jones prepares, the movie has the allure of a beautifully photographed gourmet magazine, and it affords us a glimpse into the kitchens of the kind of gastronomically praised establishments that serve up minuscule portions for astronomical prices.

Is there an unwritten rule that all highly praised food must never touch the edge of any plate?

Wells supplies the kitchen scenes with the heat and bustle you'd expect, and I'd have been content if food preparation -- complete with tension, yelling and the occasional dress-down -- had completely wiped out the plot.

The screenplay by Steven Knight (Locke, Redemption) doesn't have much to offer once it convinces us that Jones' character is a jerk.

Because he's a talented jerk, others -- Sienna Miller as a saucier with a big future and Daniel Bruhl as a gay Maitre-D -- tolerate Jones and try to help him, even when they're frustrated by him.

Additional support comes from Omar Sy (The Untouchables), as a sous chef whose business in Paris was ruined by the then drunken Jones, and Matthew Rhys , as a rival restaurateur who also dislikes Jones intensely.

Subplots involving Jones' indebtedness to drug dealers and the late-picture introduction of one of his former lovers (Alicia Vikander) add little to an undernourished script.

Functioning as a kind of garnish, Emma Thompson appears as a doctor hired by Jones' employer to monitor his blood-alcohol level, and, occasionally, to offer sage advice.

Celebrity chefs Marcus Wareing and Mario Batali are credited with having served as consultants on the movie, so the kitchen environment presumably has some authenticity.

Truth be told, I'd rather watch the two of them work than be force fed another helping of Burnt.

If you're hungry for a more appetizing food movie, and haven't seen Chef, well ... there's always Netflix.

A visual feast, but is it too much?

Michel Gondry's Mood Indigo amuses and then over-amuses.

Not many filmmakers seem to care about visual comedy these days. You'll find abundant sight gags (generally of a gross nature) in American movies, but true visual wit remains a rarity. Gore Verbinski displayed plenty of intricate visual humor in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, but he's an exception to the rule.

The French filmmaker Michel Gondry (The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Human Nature) doesn't always score bulls eyes, but left to his own devices, as he apparently was in 2006's The Science of Sleep, Gondry unleashes his capacity for amusing visual invention.

Gondry's Mood Indigo is based on a 1947 novel -- L'Ecume des Jours -- by Boris Vian. I'm not familiar with Vian's novel, but after seeing Gondry's movie, I have to believe that the director was inspired by a story that allowed him to pull out every visual stop -- with substantial help from Stephane Rosenbaum, his talented production designer.

The story: Colin (Romain Duris) has money and a quirky Paris apartment. Colin's a bit frivolous, having invented a machine that he calls the "pianocktail." This grandly silly instrument mixes cocktails when Duke Ellington's Mood Indigo is played on it.

Colin's chef and chief advisor (Omar Sy of The Intouchables) whips up fantastical dishes for Colin and his best friend Chick (Gad Elmaleh). Turn on the faucets in Colin's apartment and out come eels, an amusing, if less than appetizing, sight.

Love looms. Chick meets Alise (Aissa Maiga) and falls for her. An envious Colin insists on falling in love, as well.

At a party, Colin meets Chloe (Audrey Tautou). They dance together in a scene in which Gondry uses animation to enhance their limbs in rubbery, cartoonish fashion.

Colin and Chloe also date, flying over Paris on a white cloud that looks like a swan and seems to have been borrowed from an old-fashioned amusement park.

Gondry's mix of live action and effects can be amusing and strange: The doorbell that turns into a mechanized insect that crawls the walls of Colin's apartment, for example.

Colin is such a good pal that he offers money to Chick so that he can marry his soul mate. As it turns out, Chick spends most of his time and a lot of Colin's money acquiring valuable editions of the work of Jean-Sol Patre, a goof on ... well ... you know who.

Gondry's upbeat tone prevails right up to the time when Chloe contracts a Camille-like cough, a malady that stems from the fact that there's a water lily growing in one of he lungs.

Faced with losing the love of his life and his fortune, Colin drifts toward despair.

Mood Indigo takes place over a fleet 92 minutes, but the non-stop invention inevitably loses some its charm, and the movie's visual bric-a-brac proves so plentiful that it can feel as if it exists purely for its own sake.

I liked parts of Mood Indigo very much, and I respect Gondry's desire to ravish and entertain the eye. But like heavy rain on hot pavement, Mood Indigo tends to evaporate quickly, a victim perhaps of its own immoderation.

A crowd-pleaser from France

There's certainly a need for a movie that takes a serious look at the way French traditionalists interact with the new and racially diverse residents of their sometimes tumultuous country. The Intouchables flirts with the subject, but seems far more interested in humor and charm than in any deep probing.

Still, the movie benefits from a premise with a bit of topical kick: A young Senegalese man (Omar Sy) winds up working for a wealthy Frenchmen (Francois Cluzet) who's paralyzed from the neck down.

Directors Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano, who also wrote the screenplay, give a crowd-pleasing, odd-couple twist to a bromance that's greatly aided by Sy's vibrant performance as Driss, a young ex-convict who approaches the world with disarming candor.

Not one to filter his remarks, Driss reacts to almost every situation with engaging immediacy and down-to-earth intelligence. Driss can't entirely escape stereotyping, but then neither can Cluzet's Philippe, an aristocratic type who likes classical music, art and literature.

Drisss meets Philippe almost by accident. While going through the motions of job-hunting (in order to maintain government benefits), Driss stumbles into a position that involves caring for Philippe. He doesn't condescend to Philippe or censor himself when it comes to discussing his boss's disability, and Philippe seems to enjoy Driss's lack of reserve.

As the movie progresses, Driss and Philippe develop a convincing friendship, and there are scenes that are both pointed and funny: Driss accompanying Philippe to the opera or Driss deciding to try his hand at painting after learning that some abstract art fetches insanely high prices.

The Intouchables takes Driss seriously, although it can't resist putting him into a predictable situation in which he brings Earth Wind and Fire and party-down dancing to the high-culture crowd.

Those with familiar with French cinema will not be surprised to learn that Cluzet gives a wry and sometimes mischievous performance as a man paralyzed in a paragliding accident. Philippe may be physically helpless, but Cluzet shows that he's not above exerting other kinds of power; he enjoys toying with Driss.

The movie announces at the outset that it's based on a true story, and the real people are shown during the closing credits. It's then that we discover Driss was based on Abdel, an Arab. Knowing who Driss really was made me wonder why the filmmakers changed his ethnicity.

I have no ready answer, but the question sent me out of the theater scratching my head instead of basking in the glow of the friendship the movie so ably creates.

Oh well, despite its frank acknowledgements of Philippe's physical problems and its refusal to ignore Driss's life in a Parisian housing project, The Intouchables comes off as light, feel-good entertainment carried by two gifted actors who simply refuse to be defeated by cliche.