“Holiday in the Wild” Looks Like a Hallmark Movie with a Netflix Budget

It's coming in just under the wire, but Rob Lowe may finally have found a project worse than Drew Peterson: Untouchable. Holiday in the Wild is one of many Christmas-themed films coming to Netflix in the next two months, but the only discernible difference between this and the sugary sweet marathon of Hallmark Original Movies is the budget.

Filmed in South Africa, the film clearly had the budget to film on actual game preserves, but everything else you've seen before. Kristin Davis plays a rich woman visiting Zambia on what was supposed to be her second honeymoon, but her husband left her before they boarded the plane. Her crass pilot is played by Rob Lowe, but you better believe they'll fall in love as they team up to rescue an orphaned elephant. At least there will be cute elephants.

Holiday in the Wild will drop on Netflix on Friday, November 1. Apologies in advance to all the significant others and parents who will be forced to watch this.

About Kip Mooney

Like many film critics born during and after the 1980s, my hero is Roger Ebert. The man was already the best critic in the nation when he won the Pulitzer in 1975, but his indomitable spirit during and after his recent battle with cancer keeps me coming back to read not only his reviews but his insightful commentary on the everyday. But enough about a guy you know a lot about. I knew I was going to be a film critic—some would say a snob—in middle school, when I had to voraciously defend my position that The Royal Tenenbaums was only a million times better than Adam Sandler’s remake of Mr. Deeds. From then on, I would seek out Wes Anderson’s films and avoid Sandler’s like the plague. Still, I like to think of myself as a populist, and I’ll be just as likely to see the next superhero movie as the next Sundance sensation. The thing I most deplore in a movie is laziness. I’d much rather see movies with big ambitions try and fail than movies with no ambitions succeed at simply existing. I’m also a big advocate of fun-bad movies like The Room and most of Nicolas Cage’s work. In the past, I’ve written for The Dallas Morning News and the North Texas Daily, which I edited for a semester. I also contributed to Dallas-based Pegasus News, which in the circle of life, is now part of The Dallas Morning News, where I got my big break in 2007. Eventually, I’d love to write and talk about film full-time, but until that’s a viable career option, I work as an auditor for Wells Fargo. I hope to one day meet my hero, go to the Toronto International Film Festival, and compete on Jeopardy. Until then, I’m excited to share my love of film with you.