His secret soon spills too, and Jack is so desperate to please his wife that he ignores safari-park protocol and lets them get too close to the fauna: a female rhinoceros and calf.
What is on this buff oilman’s mind, though, is that he has just been put on extended leave following an industrial accident. “Penny for them,” Lauren actually says to Jack, as they are Cessna-ing in. Perhaps the worst thing in Endangered Species is the fake-looking animals, with one exception: a beautiful bit of footage (not filmed for this movie) of a leopard rousing itself from sleep that might be worth the price of admission by itself.T he days of Africa-set films featuring white protagonists using glowing savannas as set dressing for first-world problems seemed to be numbered, but hold on: here is a fist-bitingly self-regarding family drama with Philip Winchester and X-Men’s Rebecca Romijn as Jack and Lauren Halsey, a seemingly dream couple off on a dream safari with son Noah and daughter Zoe, and her pothead boyfriend Billy. O'Connell overacts in a role that ought to be more menacing than it is, and the entire movie has a strange, quasi-comic tone, with the vague, off-putting feeling that we're supposed to be laughing from time to time. Other obvious plot elements, such as bringing along easily breakable glass bottles of water, not taking enough insulin for Lauren, etc., are further confounding. The family's predicament is entirely Jack's fault, due to his poor choices (no guide, failing to check in at the gate, going off-road, etc.). Zoe, for her part, has taken to calling him by his name rather than "Dad" out of a lack of respect, and it's easy to agree with her. He also hates his daughter Zoe's boyfriend. He's immediately established as a weaselly oil company man who's whiny and yet arrogant, and it's not long before we learn that he has a problem with his son's homosexuality. Unfortunately, he's so aggravating and despicable from the outset that it would take far longer than 101 minutes for most folks to really forgive him.
Endangered Species seems to have gambled its emotional arc on Jack's redemption. Well-meaning but too ridiculous to really work, this misfire of a family-bonding safari adventure is packed with frustrating characters, poor choices, and cheap-looking CGI animals.
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