Zach (Kristopher Turner) and Ben (Oliver James) have been friends since grade school despite the two being complete opposites. Ben is the straight-laced, "good boy" while Zach is the slacker more interested in having fun than... well, everything else. Their friendship continues into High School, where they meet Heather. Ben becomes obsessed with the Heather (Madison Riley), only to lose the girl of his dreams when she is expelled due to an anti-lab rat protest.
Flash forward a few years and the guys are still friends, but their busy lives have put a strain on the relationship. Ben is now a lawyer and buried with work, while Zach lives a slightly less-stressful life as a nurse at a nursing home. Despite repeated attempts at rekindling the friendship, Zach is unsuccessful until a dying patient asks Zach to find her granddaughter. As fate would have it, the granddaughter is Heather. The only complication is that the eco-friendly Heather has been living in the wilderness of Oregon for the last few years, setting the guys, along with Heather's British step-brother, Nigel (Rik Young), on an adventure in the great outdoors.
Nature's Calling is an odd movie. Overall the movie is a dud, but not for a lack of trying. The story between Zach and Ben is a little cliché, but still interesting. It becomes even more interesting once Heather enters the picture. However, the core story is burdened with numerous, unnecessary sub-plots and pointless gags. Nigel serves no real purpose other than to introduce a pair of lame hitmen as villains, even though Ben's story already provides two antagonists who are just as good. At times, it almost feels like someone decided there had to be three guys because the original had three guys, not because is serves the story in any way.
Another big misstep is a sub-plot involving a group of animated squirrels. I'm cool with mischievous animals, but when they run around the screen acting like humans... well, that throws off the "reality" the rest of the movie tries to create. Again, it feels like the squirrels are really just there because someone knew how to do really good CGI squirrels, not because it served the story. There's an attempt to tie them into another sub-plot involving Hal Gore (Al's brother, Jerry Rice), though even this is a throwaway plot. Hal just sort of appears later in the movie and only serves as a mechanism to lead to a quick, convenient ending. He also adds a bit of a "green" message to the entire movie, though the delivery is so wooden that it's hard to tell if the message is meant to be sarcastic or serious. My money is on the former, but you never can tell.
There are, however, a few bright spots scattered throughout the movie. I wasn't thrilled with most of the performances (especially Jerry Rice... jeez), but Kristopher Turner deserves some credit. Zach is easily the most appealing character in the movie and comes off as the type of guy you would want as a friend. Plus, I have to tip my hat to anyone who thinks to save the keg before other supplies (or the Brit). There's also some smart writing tucked in between the otherwise stale jokes.
The quality of the main feature is questionable, especially for a Blu-ray release, but at least it comes with a few extras that are slightly more interesting. "Up the Creek" is a fairly in-depth behind the scenes feature while "Treehouse Tales" provides a look at the construction for Heather's treehouse, one of the movie's main set pieces. "Furious Nuts" is a short look at the squirrels. These features are rounded out with a gag reel and deleted scenes.
Without a Paddle: Nature's Calling is the type of movie I hate the most. Not because it isn't good, but because there's obvious potential. However, rather than chase down and build on what works it instead waters everything down with "edgy" jokes and other nonsense. If you have to see Without a Paddle: Nature's Calling, add it to your Netflix queue or rent it.
