Review: Benji the Hunted (DMC #82)
Calling all dog fans! Last night we watched Benji the Hunted, the 82nd film in our Disnerd Movie Challenge! Did you know that this was the fourth film in the Benji franchise, yet the only one produced by Disney? We didn’t either until we looked it up! We’ve included a synopsis in case you need a refresher, but if you watched with us last night, skip ahead to the review to join the discussion!
Synopsis
Famous dog actor Benji has gone missing while filming a movie on location in Oregon. Benji’s trainer, Frank Inn, tells local news reporter, Mary Beth McLaulin, that he and Benji had been on an open fishing boat in the Pacific Ocean, but a storm suddenly came in and capsized the boat before they could return to shore. The reporter asks about the possibility that Benji survived, though Mr. Inn fears he is dead. Undeterred, the movie producers plan a helicopter search the next day to look for Benji. Meanwhile, somewhere along the coast, Benji has survived the storm and swims to shore. The next day, the helicopter flies near the bush Benji is sleeping in, but he goes unnoticed. Benji is soon woken up by the sound of gunshots. He wanders through the woods and sees a female cougar sitting on top of a boulder. A hunter comes into the clearing and shoots the cougar, knocking her off the boulder and down a hill. Benji goes after the cougar and tries to help her by licking her wound and tugging at her ears to make her get up, but he is forced to run when the hunter arrives and shoos him away. Benji hears a second shot, and the hunter is seen carrying the dead cougar away. As he continues walking through the woods, Benji hears the helicopter fly overhead again. He runs after it, barking, but is unable to get its attention. Benji soon hears noises and discovers four cougar cubs, which he realizes must belong to the dead mother. At first, Benji chooses not to get involved and leaves, but one of the curious cubs runs toward Benji. Benji takes the cub back to its den and attempts to keep the cubs in the den by barking, but when he sees an eagle flying overhead, Benji decides to stay and watch over the cubs to protect them. He goes out to find food for them and comes back with berries, but the cubs refuse to eat them. While out hunting, Benji comes across a rabbit and chases after it. Once he corners it, however, he takes pity on the rabbit and lets it go with a couple licks on its head. Instead, he eventually comes across a cabin, where he spots a wild bird being cooked over an open fire. The same hunter from earlier comes out to retrieve the bird, and Benji takes the opportunity to snag another dead bird hanging from a line. He rushes back to the cubs to give them the bird to feast on.
The next day, Benji collects some rocks to make the den higher so the cubs can’t escape. He returns to the cabin to collect the other dead bird, but this time the hunter catches him and ties him up. When he reads Benji’s collar, he remembers that there is a reward for Benji’s rescue and decides to hang onto him to collect the reward. The hunter goes back inside his cabin, and Benji tugs on the rope, trying to break free. A black timber wolf sneaks towards the cabin, growling at Benji. The hunter comes back outside, scaring the wolf away. Getting an idea, Benji paces the area around the cabin and tugs the rope as far as it can go. When the wolf returns and lunges at Benji, the dog uses the rope to trip the wolf up and cause a commotion. The hunter runs outside and sees the wolf, then gives chase with his gun. The wolf escapes and the hunter fires a warning shot. The hunter unties Benji so he can untangle the rope, leaving Benji on top of a pile of wood right next to the hanging bird. Benji immediately snags the bird and runs back to the cubs. Along the way, he sees another female cougar with a young cub of her own. He drops the bird on the trail and runs after the cougar. He tries to get her to follow him to his cubs, but she growls at him and even manages to take a couple swipes at the dog. Benji decides he’ll carry the cubs to her, but the helicopter returns, scaring the female cougar and her cub away before they can see Benji’s cubs. Benji sees his trainer, Frank, in the window of the helicopter and nearly runs out to him, but decides to stay with the cubs until they find a new home. By the time Benji goes back to retrieve the bird he left on the trail, another animal has taken it. He searches for more food, and the cubs follow him. The wolf watches from afar and attempts to go after the cubs, but the helicopter makes another flight nearby and frightens the wolf away.
The following day, Benji is out wandering the woods while the cubs are safe in the new den. Benji sees the cougar and her cub, as well as the wolf. The wolf gives chase, but Benji manages to escape. Some time later, Benji leads the four cubs along a path toward the mother cougar. A large brown bear soon comes along, forcing Benji and the cubs to hide. One of the cubs runs towards the bear and hisses at it, but the bear growls and scares the cub back into hiding. The bear moves towards them, and Benji runs in the opposite direction, barking to get the bear’s attention as he lures the bear away from the cubs. The bear soon loses Benji and gives up the chase, but Benji is spotted by the wolf yet again. Benji leads the wolf on a long chase around the mountain until Benji lures the wolf to the bear. The bear takes notice of the wolf, who immediately backs down, but the bear decides to now chase after the wolf. Later, Benji sees the cougar drinking from a stream which she crosses with her cub. Benji crosses the river as well, and the four cubs follow him across the stream. A bit later, the helicopter lands and Mr. Inn gets out, calling for Benji. For a second time, Benji is caught between going to Mr. Inn and helping the cubs. He looks back at the cubs and once again decides to stay, then he watches Mr. Inn get back into the helicopter. Just then, an eagle swoops down upon the cubs, who are playing in an open meadow. The eagle grabs one of the cubs in its talons and flies off. Benji tries to rescue the cub, but it is too late. The eagle flies near the remaining three cubs, but Benji aggressively barks at the eagle and manages to scare it away. Benji and the three cubs continue their journey.
A short while later, Benji sees the mother cougar and her cub. He leaves the other three cubs in a protected area, then barks at the cougar, who soon gives chase. He loses her along the way and nearly falls off a cliff into a ravine, the edge of which was hidden behind some bushes that Benji ran right though. He manages to climb back to safety. He spots the cubs from the top of the cliff, then sees the cougar near a waterfall. Benji gets an idea—instead of always following the cougar mom, he’ll make her come to him. He just has to get ahead of her. He runs back, blocking off one fork of the forest path before heading to where he left the cubs. However, the wolf has beat him to his cubs. Benji barks at the wolf, trying to distract it, but the wolf ignores Benji and attempts to attack the cubs. Benji lunges at the wolf and bites it. The cubs quickly run and hide under a rock, where the wolf is unable to reach them. Benji continues to fight the wolf by jumping on its back, and then runs away. The wolf runs after Benji once more. Benji leads the wolf on a chase up the mountain and towards the edge of the cliff he nearly fell from. Hiding in the bushes, Benji watches as the wolf leaps right over the bushes and off the cliff. Benji returns to the cubs and coaxes them out from under the rock. He begins carrying each cub up the steep mountainside one at a time in his mouth. The second and third cubs attempt to climb on their own until Benji helps them. Meanwhile, the mother cougar and her cub wander through the woods. Benji’s barricade works and the cougars take the path Benji wanted them to, leading them closer to the place where Benji’s cubs are. Eventually, Benji gets himself and all three cubs to the top of the mountain, and the cougar and her cub come into the clearing. Though at first reluctant, the cougar mother eventually approaches the cubs and soon begins nuzzling them. Her own cub joins the mother and newly adopted siblings, and the new family cuddles together. Benji leaves, turning back to look one last time at the cubs before resting in plain sight of the helicopter, which begins to touch down to rescue Benji as the film ends.
Thoughts Before Watching
Megan: I’ve seen the original Benji a few times and enjoyed it. I’m hoping this sequel is at least as interesting as the original. If not, at least it looks like there will be cute baby cougars.
Kevin: My grandmother actually had a dog many years ago which she named Benji because he looked just like the dog from the original movie. I didn’t know the context for a while, and I think I only saw the original movie once. It’s interesting that Disney produced just one of the films—hopefully it’s enough of a standalone that we won’t need the older movies to understand this one!
Thoughts After Watching
A Simple Story with Minimal Dialogue
Megan: Kevin and I were both impressed with the way the filmmakers were able to tell Benji’s story with hardly any dialogue. With so much of the film focusing on the animal actors, I have to give kudos to the film’s editor, Karen Thorndike (yay female editors!), for creating so much meaning through the choice of juxtaposed shots, music, and all the other editorial magic. It’s quite a feat! Part of what makes the film’s storyline easy to understand is its simplicity. Benji’s story isn’t very complex—he’s lost, finds himself compelled to care for a litter of orphaned mountain lion cubs, and does everything he can to get those cubs to a new surrogate mountain lion mom before he allows himself to be found by his beloved Mr. Inn. The only critique here is that the story is so simplistic that I found myself wanting just a little bit more complexity. I was expecting to see more of the human side of the story as they try to search for Benji, or even perhaps a redemption arc for the hunter who could have realized he killed the cubs’ mother and tried to make it right, yet none of that ever came about. The story was still engaging as is, but it’s not something I’m sure deserves multiple viewings (unless you’re a kid who absolutely loves seeing the baby mountain lions and other animal antics—I could see my childhood self enjoying this purely for the animals alone).
Kevin: I agree that giving us more of Mr. Inn and his quest to find Benji would have added a good layer to this movie. In fact, after that opening scene with Mr. Inn, I thought for sure we would see him multiple times. I mean, his voice was practically breaking when he spoke of Benji being lost at sea. How great would it have been to see him and Benji reunite at the end of the movie, with Benji running straight into Mr. Inn’s waiting arms? The film only showed the helicopter landing near Benji, so it’s clearly meant to show things worked out well for man and dog, but I would have liked to see the actual reunion. Anyway, all that said, I was pleasantly surprised that this story actually had some emotional moments. I already mentioned the opening scene with Mr. Inn as an example, and many of the other emotional scenes were those involving the cougars. Even though none of the animals seemed to actually get hurt (more on that later), watching the mother cougar “die” and one of the cubs get carried away by an eagle were honestly sad to watch. Props to the whole crew as well for their clever editing, music, and extensive animal training, because I was able to completely believe that Benji truly felt that he had failed by losing one of the cubs. There is enough emotion being conveyed through the screen that I found myself engaged enough in the movie. Also, can we talk about having actual payoffs? First, there’s when Benji tricks the wolf by leading him to the bear that he was trying to outrun. Then, there’s when Benji uses the terrain of the mountain to his advantage to cause the wolf to fall off a cliff. We remember that Benji was able to do that because he nearly fell off it! I was not at all expecting callbacks to something like that in a movie about animals. But then again, Benji has always been this clever since his first (non-Disney produced) film. For having little to no dialogue, I appreciate that the filmmakers managed to craft a somewhat engaging story.
An action movie disguised as a cute animal movie
Kevin: (Note: I wrote this after realizing that the tags on Disney Plus label this movie as “Action Adventure.” Silly me!) Benji the Hunted is absolutely a cute animal movie, no doubts about it. But as I watched it, I noticed that it had a lot of similarities to typical action movies. From what I know of the other films in the franchise, Benji has usually found himself in some high stakes action scenarios. Benji proves himself against both other animals and nature as he takes on this daring quest. His devotion to helping the cubs survive and find a new home is so strong that he’s willing to put himself into any danger to achieve the goal, including standing up to a cougar, a bear, and, his most antagonistic foe, a wolf. These encounters, as well as the general journey itself, force Benji to improvise a lot of the time. He creates a shelter for the cubs, manages to steal food from a hunter, and even carries the cubs over rough terrain one at a time in his own mouth. (Honestly, watching this film made me curious to watch the others in the series, because I’m interested to see how resourceful Benji really is.) Many of these moments are shot in close ups and even employ some shaky cam now and again, something many action films incorporate to create tension. I’m not saying this is quite like something Arnold Schwarzenegger or Sylvester Stallone would do, but the film does make Benji an action hero in his own right. Also, just because I think this is worth mentioning, the dog actor playing Benji in this film is Benjean, the daughter of Higgins, who played the original Benji. This film was ultimately Benjean’s last time playing Benji, but I just love that the role was carried on through the same family for a while.
Bechdel Test Fail
Megan: This is probably no surprise for a film with such little dialogue to begin with, but this film fails the Bechdel test. The only human female character who speaks is the reporter we meet in the opening of the film. (And even then, we hear her male colleagues denying her request for them to give her another minute to prepare before going live.) Beyond that, the only female characters are animals—the two mother cougars, and maybe some of the cubs (their gender is ambiguous). Ironically, the dog playing Benji is a female dog playing the role of a male dog. In terms of sexism, there’s nothing blatant to point to here beyond that opening dialogue. Sure, there are more male human characters cast than female human characters, and the one cougar mom is killed by a male hunter, but because this film focuses so much on the animal world, we’re thankfully spared the sexism of the human world. Even the team of filmmakers behind the film boasts more women in decision-making roles than previous Disney films in our challenge (although, the top roles still went to men).
Animal Safety Maintained
Megan: I had a feeling this film’s treatment of animals would be different from previous films in our challenge when the film’s opening credits called out the animal trainers: “Wild animals furnished and trained by Steve Martin’s Working Wildlife,” “Special cougar work by Sled Reynolds and Gideon,” and “Benji’s trainers, Bryan L. Renfro and Juanita Inn.” That caught my attention, because I don’t believe any of the previous live-action animal films we watched gave credit to the trainers until the closing credits (or, if they were in the opening credits, they were not given such prominence). As the film continued, I was happy to see that the animal action looked far safer than previous films. At no point was I ever concerned that these animal actors were truly in danger. The cougar actor who gets “shot” by the hunter clearly wasn’t really shot, the wolf that went over the cliff was definitely a prop, and the cougar cub that gets snatched by an eagle was clearly a stuffed animal stand-in hidden with some clever editing and camera angles. Even in the case of the prop stand-ins, they didn’t look nearly as fake as the cat props used in The Cat From Outer Space for the airplane sequence. In the case of the scenes where predator and prey animals were in the same scene together, it was clear from both sets of animals’ body language that they were not frightened of each other. The bunny Benji chases seemed totally chill about a dog licking its head. Benji and the wolf seemed like two dogs playing a long game of chase. (Kevin: this was my favorite character dynamic by far. I would be so interested to hear/read about the wolf’s training for its “role” as the villain!) Even the cougar seemed relaxed about Benji tugging on its ear (although, I had to wonder if the cougar had perhaps been sedated in order to put up with that. In my research, I couldn’t find any specific details on that scene, but the film’s end credits do note that “This motion picture was produced under the supervision of the American Humane Society and extreme care was taken by all to insure the safety of the animals. No animals were injured or killed during filmmaking. Certain sequences were simulated.”). While some of the action may have seemed “fake” because of these safety precautions, I found the film far more enjoyable because I wasn’t worrying about the animal actors’ safety.