Fierce Creatures

Fierce Creatures is a 1997 British-American farcical comedy film. While not literally a sequel, Fierce Creatures is a spiritual successor to the 1988 film A Fish Called Wanda. Both films star John Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline, Michael Palin and Cynthia Cleese. Fierce Creatures was written by John Cleese, and directed by Robert Young and Fred Schepisi.

This article is about the comedy film. For the episode of the television series Zoboomafoo, see List of Zoboomafoo episodes ยง Season 1 (1999-2000).
Fierce Creatures
Theatrical release poster
Directed by
Produced by
Written by
Starring
Music byJerry Goldsmith
Cinematography
Edited byRobert Gibson
Production
company
Jersey Films
Distributed byUniversal Pictures
Release date
  • January 24, 1997 (1997-01-24) (United States)
  • February 14, 1997 (1997-02-14) (United Kingdom)
Running time
93 minutes
Country
  • United Kingdom
  • United States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$25 million[1]
Box office$9.4 million[2]

The film was dedicated to Gerald Durrell and Peter Cook. Some scenes were filmed at Jersey Zoo, a zoological park founded by Durrell.

Plot

Willa Weston arrives in Atlanta to take a high-ranking position in a company recently acquired by Octopus Inc.'s owner, Rod McCain. But Rod informs her that he has already sold the company where she was to work. Willa then agrees to run another recent acquisition, Marwood Zoo, in an attempt to create a business model that can be used for multiple zoos in the future. Rod McCain's son Vincent, who feels an unreciprocated attraction to Willa, announces that he will join her at the zoo.

The newly appointed director of the zoo is a retired Hong Kong Police Force officer and former Octopus Television employee, Rollo Lee. In order to meet Octopus's revenue target of 20% from all assets, Rollo institutes a "fierce creatures" theme on the assumption that dangerous and violent animals will attract more visitors. All animals not meeting those requirements must go. All the animal keepers, including spider-handler Bugsy, make various attempts to get Rollo to change his mind. One such attempt involves getting Rollo to kill some of the cutest animals himself, but Rollo, seeing through their prank, fakes the animals' extermination. Rollo keeps the animals in his bedroom which later causes Willa and Vincent to misunderstand that Rollo is having an orgy with the female staff.

Rollo discovers that several staff members are faking animal attack injuries. Rollo fires several warning shots at those responsible and Reggie rushes in, thinking mistakenly that one of them is shot. Rollo then finds a visitor who has had a genuine accident but, not believing it is real, tastes the blood of the visitor whilst loudly proclaiming that it is fake. Just then Willa and Vincent arrive and this fiasco sees Rollo demoted to middle management. Vince even threatens to fire him if his apparent activities with the female staff do not cease.

Vince covers both the zoo and animals alike with advertisements after secretly garnering sponsors, dresses the staff in ridiculous outfits, and installs an artificial panda in one of the enclosures. His continued attempts to seduce Willa fail, while she comes to enjoy working at the zoo after having a close encounter with a silverback gorilla. She finds herself attracted to Rollo after becoming fascinated by his apparent ability to attract multiple women. When Rollo attempts to have a discussion about Vince's marketing plan, she suggests they have dinner, but she is forced to postpone when she remembers Rod is coming from Atlanta to discuss the running of the zoo.

Worried that the visit might be part of a plan to close the zoo, Rollo and the zookeepers bug Rod's hotel room to find out. Although the plan goes awry, they learn that Rod wants to turn the zoo into a golf course and is not actually expecting to die soon.

Upon discovering that Vince has stolen sponsorship money he raised, Willa warns him to return it, or else she will tell Rod. When Rollo attempts to work out how the theft can be traced, he and Willa finally kiss, just as Vince arrives to return the money. A confrontation takes place first at the zoo office, and then outside as Willa, Rollo, Bugsy, and several others attempt to stop Vince from running off with the money. Bugsy refuses to shut up, so Vince loses his temper and grabs a pistol from the management office. Rod arrives just as Vince is being subdued and announces the police are on their way to arrest Vince for stealing. Vince tries and fails to shoot his father, but then Bugsy takes the pistol and accidentally shoots Rod between the eyes.

In the panic that follows, a plan emerges to fool Neville and the arriving police. The keepers work together to dress Vince up as Rod, since he can imitate his father's accent fairly well. When the police and Neville arrive, Vince (as Rod) tells them that he has rewritten Rod's will, specifying that the zoo will become a trust of the caretakers while Vince will inherit everything else, and he wants all of them to be witnesses. After signing the new will, Vince locks himself in a caretaker hut where he feigns Rod's suicide. Although Neville becomes suspicious, he is left dumbstruck when he discovers the dead body of his boss in the hut.

Now free, the zookeepers destroy the evidence of McCain's ownership. Vince becomes the new CEO of Octopus, while Willa and Rollo happily begin a new life together while continuing to run the zoo.

Cast

Production

Cleese began writing the script in 1992 and shooting began on 15 May 1995. It was completed in August and the film was previewed in November of that year. Preview audiences expressed dissatisfaction with the ending, and in February 1996 the decision was made to reshoot the ending and some other sequences. These additional scenes could not be shot until August 1996 because of the availability of the cast, in particular Michael Palin who was making Full Circle with Michael Palin. In the meantime, Cleese and Johnstone worked on a new ending with William Goldman. The delay meant that director Robert Young was busy on pre-production for Jane Eyre, so Cleese hired Fred Schepisi, with whom he had been discussing making a version of Don Quixote. The reshoots took five weeks and cost $7 million.[1]

Schepisi claims he tried to get the producers to take out the opening 15 minutes, which was done for a test screening, but then some of this footage was put back in, which Schepisi thought killed the movie.[3]

Reception

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a score of 55% based on 33 reviews with an average rating of 5.58/10. The site's critical consensus reads "Fierce Creatures reunites A Fish Called Wanda's talented ensemble for a comedy that, while not without its moments, suffers from diminishing returns".[4]

Roger Ebert awarded the film two and a half out of four stars, and compared it unfavourably to A Fish Called Wanda, stating: "It lacks the hair-trigger timing, the headlong rush into comic illogic, that made Wanda so special."[5]

Cleese has since stated that following up A Fish Called Wanda with a second film had been a mistake. When asked in 2008 by his friend, director and restaurant critic Michael Winner what he would do differently if he could live his life again, Cleese responded, "I wouldn't have married Alyce Faye Eichelberger and I wouldn't have made Fierce Creatures."[6]

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References
  1. "FIERCE CREATURES RESHOOT DELAYS FILM'S PREMIERE BY NINE MONTHS" by Hans ten Cate Daily Llama 20 August 1997. dailyllama.com. Retrieved 19 April 2014
  2. "Fierce Creatures". Box Office Mojo
  3. "Interview with Fred Schepisi", Signis, 22 December 1998 Archived 14 October 2013 at the Wayback Machine. signis.net. Retrieved 20 November 2012
  4. "Fierce Creatures (1997)- Rotten Tomatoes". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved December 6, 2018.
  5. Ebert, Roger (January 24, 1997). "Fierce Creatures". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved December 21, 2014.
  6. "Restaurant review: Michael Winner at Villa Principe Leopoldo, Switzerland". The Sunday Times. UK. 6 July 2008. Retrieved 3 August 2008.
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