BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

Listonixio Fresh and Exciting

Verity Robins Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

Jonah Abbott There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

cultfilmfan Roar, is a film that certainly has to be seen to be believed. The film has brought upon itself many a curious viewer and with it's theatrical re-release in 2015, the film was being billed and sold on the very fact that everything you see on the screen before you is real, and while no animals were hurt during the filming of it, many cast and crew members were and it ultimately proved to be a timely and in other words, a disastrous film shoot. The premise is simple enough about a man living in the wild amongst many lions, tigers and various forms of other wildlife. This man considers these animals to be his friends and will snuggle up to them, play with them and treat them as you would any domesticated pet, like say a dog or cat, except in this case, these were real live animals and basically if you pulled a wrong move, both your character and the actor portraying them could suffer serious injuries if not be killed. For the first little while as I was watching this man treating these wild animals like everyday pets, I thought to myself that he must be insane and no matter how much you love, or respect animals, there certainly has to be boundaries that need not be crossed and this guy did not just cross those lines, but they never seemed to occur to him in the first place. That is where some of the interest, or should I say intrigue comes from while watching the film, Roar. Because it is well documented that many of these cast members as well as the crew suffered serious injuries while filming this, it brings a certain element of danger as well as suspense as you watch not only the more peaceful interactions with the animals, but also when the animals start to turn and even though the film is PG rated and there is no copious amounts of violence or gore, you still truly have a sense of fear and dread with what these actors must have gone through during the course of what must have been a draining and terrifying shoot. The film has been dubbed by some in the film world as a cross between watching Swiss Family Robinson meets watching a snuff film, and while you certainly don't witness anyone actually being killed, and nobody actually died during the film as to the knowledge I have read of it, it still gives the film the feel of watching an underground film, or even something like the Mondo Cane films that were popular amongst certain groups in the 60's and 70's because everything you watch is real and it gives the film almost a documentary type cinema verite kind of look and style. As, I mentioned earlier, sometimes you actually fear for the lives of these characters and the safety of the actors portraying them for this very reason and I think most likely no matter how big of an animal lover you are, nobody would really want a whole den of lions living and roaming around free in their house. Agreed? The film was certainly a labour of love for star, writer and director Noel Marshall, who also got his real life family including wife Tippi Hedren and daughter Melanie Griffith, to also star in the film. You would think after an unpleasant film experience as Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, that Hedren might want to stay away from working with real animals, but that was not the case here. Roar, is sometimes unintentionally hilarious as some of the antics of the animals on screen prove to be cute at some moments and at other times quite amusing. The acting in the film is really nothing award worthy in any way and when there is real life danger on the set, sometimes you laugh in spite of yourself for the absolute foolishness for these people putting themselves in harm's way and it sometimes backfiring on them. All the same, all these qualities make Roar to be an absolutely fascinating film to watch and it also proves to be quite fun at times as well. Think of an 80's version of Jurassic Park, or even Jaws. The audience I was in the theatre with also laughed along with much of the film and I am certain nobody could have called it a boring, or uninteresting experience. As for the film it does show light upon people placing more importance on animals than human life itself which while you think about it, the whole thing becomes kind of ironic after watching the film, but it is still nonetheless interesting and worth seeking out for anyone curious about anything I mentioned above, or just for a definitely unique viewing experience as this film certainly was. I would definitely be interested in knowing what the film's screenplay was actually like because as stated earlier in the film, the real life actions of the animal costars really wrote and dictated the film, so rightly they got credit where the credit was due.

funismyname Warning: Spoilers... for a movie that's 45 years old.I just watched a copy of this for the first time. It's pretty insane. I was left wondering why they made up a violent storyline instead of just showing the big cats among a family in a peaceful setting. I know a film can't be about the land of the happy people, but those cats are scary when they aren't fighting. 14 year-old Melanie Griffith has a scene where the blood has drained from her face and her lips are grey. You can tell that she really was terrified, not just acting. It is a movie with sheer terror mixed with enough absurdity to make you laugh in parts. The elephants in the film were my favorite to watch. They were the only elephants I've ever seen that I thought were scary. And by the time the family meets up with them, I couldn't help but cheer as one tears their boat out from under them and rips it apart. I wish this had gone the same way as Uly's 'Gods Must Be Crazy' though. That was a far superior film. It's a shame the concept for this was just plain stupid. i still highly recommend watching it. The bonus documentary is also worth seeing. Tippi Hedren's extremely candid comments left me speechless. Nothing gets more real than that.

zetes Jesus Christ! I've read a lot about this since it was resurrected a while back, but nothing quite prepares you for just how insane it is. It is as if Timothy Treadwell had decided to make a sitcom starring his beloved grizzly bears. The Treadwell here is Noel Marshall, Hollywood producer and husband of Tippi Hedron. The two were obsessed with lions, so they wrote this picture, where a family lives with like 50 different big cats, mostly lions but also several tigers, cheetahs, leopards, etc. There are also some elephants. The script is nearly nonexistent - I mean, how exactly are you going to get 50 giant cats to do what you want? So the idea is just to write a bare sketch of a plot and then throw your cast (which mostly consists of Marshall, Hedron and their children) to the lions like it's ancient Rome or something. Besides Noel Marshall, who probably should have been in a mental institution, the rest of the family members and other cast look terrified much of the time. At one point, one of the Marshall sons has to speak the line "I don't have to be in Chicago until next week!" A lion jumps up on him halfway through the line and you can hear his voice quiver. Of course, Melanie Griffith is one of the kids. Amazingly, no human died during the many years of production (some lions did, though, when the ranch was flooded). The film itself is far from great, but it's a must-see.

Eugene Kim "Roar" is a movie that manages to be nerve-wracking as well as tedious to sit through. Tedious because there's no story to speak of; nerve-wracking because of what the cast and crew reportedly went through to produce it."Roar" is about an American named Hank (Noel Marshall) who has gone to Africa where he can study lions up close - *really* close. To this end, he's constructed a private refuge and house where lions are free to wander about, inside and out. A *lot* of lions. And tigers. And leopards. And cougars. On this particular day, Hank is awaiting a visit from his estranged wife Madelaine (Tippi Hedren) and their grown children, who have traveled all the way from the States. But due to a lack of communications, Hank spends several hours headed to the airfield while his wife, sons and daughter make it to the refuge on their own. Once there, wife and kids are intimidated, when not downright terrified, by their close encounters with Hank's "friends" until they eventually decide the creatures aren't so bad after all. Dad finally shows up - and that's it, really. That's the whole movie, aside from a half-hearted subplot involving a couple of villainous big game poachers. You'd think that once the family settles down, "Roar" would start to tell a real story about something more substantial, but instead we get a cheerful, hopeful song accompanying a montage of the family interacting with the animals, and... the movie ends. (Just as well. At this point, I really didn't want it to keep going.)Said to have been a pet project (you should forgive the term) of Tippi Hedren and her then- husband, Noel Marshall, "Roar" reportedly cost $17 million, much of it their own money, and earned back only a fraction of its cost. It's certainly a sincere and heartfelt plea for wildlife conservation. But as I sat there, the film's opening disclaimer about how only "untrained animals" were used kept rattling in my brain.Untrained animals. It was alarming to see all these lovingly filmed scenes of lions playing (i.e. fighting) with each other. And seeing the actors let themselves be swarmed or pursued by the lions was downright heart-pounding. (I soon lost track of how many times I silently shouted, "Are you crazy?") "Roar" was a true family affair, with Noel Marshall's real-life sons and Tippi Hedren's real-life daughter, Melanie Griffith, playing the kids. (If I ever get to meet Melanie Griffith, who here plays a character named "Melanie," I must ask her about the scene in which she allowed one of the lions to pin her to the floor, face-down.)"Roar" seems to tell you that lions are just a bunch of oversized pussycats with big, sharp claws - treat 'em right, don't let them sense fear, stand up to them when necessary, let them lick and paw you to their hearts' content, and everything will be just fine, the occasional bad scratch notwithstanding. The thing is, just about everyone connected with this production was injured by the animals at one point or another, including the actors. (By unhappy happenstance, I saw this film about a month after the death in South Africa of Hollywood visual effects editor Katherine Chappell, who'd made the awful mistake of rolling down a car window during a visit to a lion park to take a picture, and was attacked and fatally bitten by a lioness.)Perhaps instead of making a "real" movie, Hedren and Marshall would have done better to have made a documentary about the wildlife they obviously admire so much. And speaking of documentary, if they had done a behind-the-scenes film about the making of this movie, that film could very well have been much more interesting than "Roar."By the way, "Roar" was beautifully photographed in Metrocolor. As in MGM. As in... lion? (Coincidence? Of course, but I couldn't resist.)