Every so often, you discover a movie that challenges you. The characters are unlike any you ve happened across before. Your intellect is put to the test. In the case of The Boy Who Talked to Badgers, the challenge comes in that you must consciously focus to keep your IQ from taking a nosedive. The Boy Who Talked to Badgers isn t the worst film I ve ever seen. But it might just claim the title of Most Pointless. A Quick History This unfortunate cinematic trainwreck is based on the 1971 book Incident at Hawk s Hill, by Allan Eckert, which actually won a Newberry Honor award. The book tells the survival story of a six year-old boy who gets lost in the Canadian wilderness and survives with the help of a badger. Disney released The Boy Who Talked to Badgers in 1975. It was aired in two parts on the Wonderful World of Disney program on television and that was the end of its run. The movie was filmed entirely in Alberta, Canada, and takes place on a farm in Alberta, Canada (surprise surprise). The story focuses on young Ben MacDonald, whose defining characteristic is that he gets along better with animals than he does people. Ben gets lost one day and must fight his way back through the wilderness to return home. Film Review WARNING: Spoilers. But you ll be happier if you spare yourself the movie-watching experience. Abandon hope, ye who enter here.
Our story begins on the prairie. As I soon discovered, the prairie was going to feature so prominently in the film that it may as well have been listed as an actor. Hope you like desaturated scenery, because this is what you ll be seeing for the next 97 minutes. It was here that I paused the movie long enough to grab a beer. As suspected, lightly tipsy turned out to be the only way to make it through the rest of the film with sanity intact. Our main character, young Benjamin MacDonald, spends his free time running around communing with animals such as Badger (who is far and away the best actor in this film). I was slightly disappointed in that the animals do not talk back to Ben. I d have even accepted Ben talking for them, as long as there was something to break up the one-way monologue. But no such luck. Ben returns home, his brother John gives him a secondhand pocketknife, and his mother, Mrs. MacDonald, calls everyone in for an extremely awkward dinner. Ben is scolded by his father, Mr. MacDonald, for neglecting to collect water, and Mrs. MacDonald makes strange faces.
The first of many. Mr. MacDonald explains that he s hired a trapper to take care of the many wild pests around the farm especially those darn badgers. The best (?) trapper in Alberta
*DRAMATIC MUSIC + ZOOM-IN* That evening, Ben overhears his father worrying that due to his fondness for wildlife, he ll be laughed out of school when he finally shows his face there. I m not really sure why Mr. MacDonald comes to this conclusion, as it s silly to expect a six year-old kid to be comfortable with strangers when the only people he ever interacts with are family members. Heck, he may be MORE socially adept BECAUSE of the time he spends with animals (i.e. creatures which make self-centered decisions and must be universally treated with respect). I bet we could teach kids more about common sense by sticking them in the woods for a week than by chanting cutesy campfire songs at them. But I digress. Anyway, logic apparently has no place on the prairie, and his father s early condemnation of his social life sends Ben to spend some quality time with the only people who understand him: the animals. He spends the next day frolicking with Badger, the hawk, and a deer (because it s not a Disney movie if a fawn doesn t nuzzle your face) before engaging in his favorite game, Let s See If I Can Keep Up With A Trout. The game leads him into fast-moving water, and he is swept several miles downstream.
The thrill of the chase and all that. When Mrs. MacDonald finally convinces her husband to quit bringing in the wheat and go out and look for their missing child, it doesn t take long for the search to involve all the neighbors. Well I say, fellas, I ain t seen ya ll since th last barn raisin. Ben finds a safe, dry cave to crash in and rests his injured ankle. Badger turns up, dragging a trout (poetic justice served), and Ben helps himself to some half-chewed sushi.
Are you enthralled with the story yet? We then switch away from the boy-badger-bonding-time and get a lot of coverage of the progress of the search party. It s defined by the trapper being an insensitive jerk and Mrs. MacDonald making lots of faces like this: ACTING. And more prairie.
Please no more It was at this point that I ran out of beer, panicked, and had to grab a glass of wine. When I came back, Ben and the Badger were wandering towards the farm, with Badger leading the way. Only uh-oh! the trapper s evil dog, Lobo, has gotten loose, and is heading right for our heroes! Lobo survives solely on a diet of spite and small children. But the dog had forgotten one thing. He s attacking a honey badger. And as we all well know, honey badgers don t care.
I HAVE NOTHING LEFT TO LOSE. So Badger effortlessly fights off Lobo like the badass she is, and then we cut to Ben waking up in the same cave he left? Wait a minute. I thought they were going back to the farm. Are you telling me that it was just an afternoon stroll? That there s no intention of leaving the cave? That we have to sit through MORE prairie? I. I can t do it. I can t, I won t. Please, Movie, if you have any kindness in your celluloid heart, please, don t make me sit through more prair-
ACTING. NO I TAKE IT BACK I WILL TAKE THE PRAIRIE AFTER ALL. Bless you. John, a member of the search party, finally gets a gut instinct where to look and rides up to the cave where Ben is camped out. He decides his instinct was wrong and turns around to go back to the farm
YOU IDIOT, YOU RE MAKING THE MOVIE LONGER NOOOOOOOOO but Ben calls him back and they go home together. There s a tearful reunion and Mrs. MacDonald makes more faces and Badger is given a place to sleep in the yard and a saucer of milk and/or water. It seems like all s well that ends well. But the movie refuses to end. The trapper comes back and, seeing the sleeping Badger, figures he ll do the job he was hired for and shoots her. He and Mr. MacDonald partake in an awkwardly slow fight, and the trapper is banished to the far regions of the icy north (AKA fired).
The only useful thing he did for this film was tell us how many badger bristles it takes to make a shaving brush. Badger is dead, and Ben mourns the loss of his closest friend. She s gone to that mudhole in the sky, son. But then, as he s carrying Badger away to bury her, she snuffles and lifts up her head. She s alive!
We get a Disney ending after all! Mr. MacDonald and Ben share a heartfelt moment where he explains that, despite their differences, everything he does is done out of love for Ben and the family. They hug, and the MacDonalds gather around Badger to nurse her back to health. And then Badger dies. Whatever. The movie s over. Flop or Not? After Disney aired the movie on TV, they sold the film to schools under the book s title, most likely to be used as an instrument of punishment.
The acting was lackluster (Badger was the best part), and personally, I think the story would have been much stronger if Disney had cut out all the stuff about Ben having a special bond with animals and just made it about this kid who gets lost and ends up being taken care of by wild animals. I was also expecting more of a survival film, where he d have to spear fish or make shoes or create a HELP ME sign with charcoal smeared onto a rock wall. Instead, Ben sleeps in a cave, gathers berries, and swipes fish from Badger. It was badly paced, clumsily ended, and unless there is literally nothing else you can do for entertainment (have you considered counting blades of grass?), it is not a movie worth the time it would take to watch.