Respect for the massively entertaining movies she made more than a decade and a half ago, like "Wilderness" and "Solomon Kane", but writer/director M. J. Bassett's "Endangered Species" is a hopelessly cliched, derivative, unexciting, overly moralizing, and annoyingly digitized action/adventure thriller.
It's probably not a good idea for families that are non-stop fighting and come across as borderline dysfunctional to go on a safari-vacation in Kenya. The father has been fired from his job and can't really afford such an expensive holiday. The homosexual son desperately seeks recognition, the rebellious daughter and her boyfriend ruin the ambiance for no reason, and the diabetic mother want to uphold appearances. When they are also extremely dumb to illegally trespass a wildlife reservation and go off road, they can only blame themselves for getting trampled by rhinos, cornered by hyenas, and mauled by cheetahs.
"Endangered Species" still could have been a mindless and entertaining creature-feature, even if all the computerized animals look laughably fake, but halfway through MJ Bassett insists on turning into a requiem for nearly extinct animal. Of course, poaching is a horrendous crime, and everyone in the world (hopefully) hates relentless people that butcher animals for ivory, but being so dramatic about it totally ruins a film. The poachers don't even get the painful and bloody deaths they deserve.
It's probably not a good idea for families that are non-stop fighting and come across as borderline dysfunctional to go on a safari-vacation in Kenya. The father has been fired from his job and can't really afford such an expensive holiday. The homosexual son desperately seeks recognition, the rebellious daughter and her boyfriend ruin the ambiance for no reason, and the diabetic mother want to uphold appearances. When they are also extremely dumb to illegally trespass a wildlife reservation and go off road, they can only blame themselves for getting trampled by rhinos, cornered by hyenas, and mauled by cheetahs.
"Endangered Species" still could have been a mindless and entertaining creature-feature, even if all the computerized animals look laughably fake, but halfway through MJ Bassett insists on turning into a requiem for nearly extinct animal. Of course, poaching is a horrendous crime, and everyone in the world (hopefully) hates relentless people that butcher animals for ivory, but being so dramatic about it totally ruins a film. The poachers don't even get the painful and bloody deaths they deserve.