For laugh hunters, "Wilderness" is a barren wasteland

Strange Wilderness

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Laughter is definitely an endangered species where "Strange Wilderness" is concerned.

An exceptionally lame comedy about the loser son of a late wildlife program host who hopes a close encounter with Bigfoot will save the program from imminent extinction, this first feature by former "Saturday Night Live" scribe Fred Wolf plays like one giant outtake reel.

Despite luring an ensemble of bright young comic actors, including Steve Zahn, Jonah Hill and Justin Long, this presentation from Adam Sandler's Happy Madison Prods. went out over the Super Bowl weekend without any advance exposure to critics.

Word-of-mouth should effectively do the job for them.

Having effectively driven his dad's beloved nature show into the ground since he took it over, Zahn's Peter Gaulke (he happens to share his name with Wolf's writing partner) needs a big ratings stunt to keep it on the air.

Obtaining a map of Bigfoot's jungle lair from his dad's survivalist friend (Joe Don Baker), Gaulke and his partner, one Fred Wolf (Sandler movie regular Allen Covert), gather a crew together for the biggest expedition of their lives.

Unfortunately they forgot to pack anything resembling jokes.

It should come as no real surprise that "Wilderness" originally took the form of a decade-old series of short wildlife-show parody videos penned by Wolf and Gaulke (the real guys, not their screen alter egos), seeing as the whole thing feels like a dated "SNL" sketch stretched to the breaking point.