The Wild Thornberrys Movie

File:Movie the wild thornberrys poster.jpg

Poster for The Wild Thornberrys Movie

The Wild Thornberrys Movie is a 2002 animated feature film based on the children's television program The Wild Thornberrys.

Critical Reception and Box Office

It opened in the US box office on December 01, 2002, finished #6 for the weekend, and grossed only a modest $40 million domestically, in spite of generally favorable reviews. It was subsequently nominated for an Academy Award for Best Song for "Father and Daughter" by Paul Simon but not for Best Animated Feature.

Plot

The film starts out with Eliza, a young ten year old girl, playing with a Cheetah family. The mother, Akela, has left Eliza in charge of the Cheetah Cub, but they eventually stray beyond the security of the area, and one of the Cheetah Cubs is kidnapped by a poacher in a helicopter. Eliza's persisten efforts to rescue it lead her grandmother Cordelia to send her off to a British Boarding school, appalled with the idea of her granddaughter being raised in the wilderness. has Eliza being sent off to Madame Beatrice's, a British boarding school, by her grandmother Cordelia, who is appalled by the idea of her grandchild being raised in the wilderness. Neither Eliza or Debbie (her older teenage sister) is not too pleased that Eliza's being sent off, Eliza because she'll miss out on a solar eclipse, and never go out close to animals and rarely see her family ever again, and Debbie, because Eliza's being sent off and not her.

Unknown to Eliza, Darwin smuggles himself into her luggage, ending up with her. Rumors about Eliza's past has spread through the school, but with time, Eliza begins to become popular. After a little while, Darwin starts a food fight in the cafeteria, ensuing in chaos and mayhem. Eliza, sick of being in the school, persuades a snotty British School girl to lend her VISA to her to get out of England, getting her back in Africa on a train. While on the train, the duo notices an injured Rhino outside the train, jump out of the train, and rush to help it. There's a small conversation between her and the rhino, it mentioning an electric fence in e pass set to kill the elephants coming through. Then they are assisted by what seems like a young couple, supposedly animal conservationists, and the Rhino is taken away by a ranger. A night spent with the couple reveals that the two are actually the poachers planning to kill the elephants coming through a pass at the day of the eclipse with an electric fence. Eliza also discovers her cheetah cub friend that was kidnapped. The poachers then discover her sneaking around, and interrogates her on how she knew about the electric fence.

Meanwhile, Debbie has to cope her parents not being home and having to take care of Donnie (her adopted brother) by herself. One day, she ends up getting lost in the jungle trying to find Donnie, and meeting a friendly village with no English-speakingf civilians. After attempts to get her motercycle out of some mud she ran into, she befriends the village, most notably a teenage boy, and they manage to get the motercycle out for her. The village, worried that Debbie will get killed out in the wilderness, send the teenage boy out as her guide. They finally find Eliza, but it results in a skirmish between the poachers and themselves. The teenage boy is lost during the commotion, and to save Debbie, Eliza admits to how she got the information on the electric fence, that she speaks to animals. This causes a storm which takes away Eliza's abilities to speak to animals, inconveniently after an arugment that happenned between her and Darwin, and before she got to say sorry. Darwin, Donnie, Eliza, and Debbie and up on a log drifting down the river, Darwin still holding the grudge.

Debbie and Eliza have a conversation about her powers, and Debbie apologizes for some things she had down in the past to hurt Eliza. They get to the pass, just in time for the eclipse. She find hundreds of elephants, being led to their doom by their matriarch, unaware of the fence. Eliza jumps onto the lead elephant, and desperately tries to tell her to stop. Then she remembers how elephant mothers tell their young how to go; she taps the elephant in a certain way, causing her to stop right in front of the fence. Everyone stops, and the elephants are saved. Eliza then meets the shaman who gave her her powers, and he grants her powers back to her. She apologizes to Darwin, and he poachers are captured. They head toward the Comvee. They explain what's been happenning, and they go on to have a welcome party.

Cast and Crew

Food fight at the boarding school in The Wild Thornberrys Movie

Food fight at the boarding school in The Wild Thornberrys Movie

Cast Besides the regulars (see Wild Thornberries article), the cast also includes:

• Obba Babatunde - Boko, some boy Deborah runs into later on
• Brenda Blethyn - Mrs. Fairgood, a teacher at the boarding school
• Rupert Everett and Marisa Tomei - Husband and wife Sloan and Bree Blackburn, wildlife conservationists, or so they say
• Lynn Redgrave - Grandma Cordelia Thornberry (the voice of Nigel Tim Curry also does the voice of her husband Colonel Radcliffe)
• Cree Summer - Phaedra, the elephant Eliza is riding at the start of the film
• Alfre Woodard - Akela, mother of the kidnapped cub
• Melissa Greenspan - Sarah Wellington, Eliza's roommate at Madame Beatrice's.

Crew

• Sequence Director- Mark Risley
• Sequence Director- Frank Marino

Taglines

• This Could Be The Beginning Of A Beautiful Adventure.
• New Home. New Friends. No Powers.
• You don't need extraordinary powers to do extraordinary things.
• Go Wild!!!

External links

• The Wild Thornberrys Movie at IMDb