Following films like "Mia and the White Lion" and "The Wolf and the Lion," director Gilles de Maistre's "Autumn and the Black Jaguar" furthers the French filmmaker's take on the superficial, family-friendly At its core, the film’s obsession is the cause of environmentalism. But as his latest show shows, noble principles for protecting wildlife and animals don't automatically translate into great scripts or movies worth watching. You want to be moved by this seemingly conservative event, but sadly, "The Fall and the Black Jaguar" quickly becomes a cringe-worthy experience in many ways, undermining young viewers in the process. Level of intelligence and taste.

The story, written by Prue de Maistre, tells the story of Autumn (Lumi Pollack), a 14-year-old junior high school student in New York City who was carefully raised by his single father Saul (Paul Green). . Clumsy flashbacks take us back to Autumn's childhood, when she grew up happily growing up in the Amazon rainforest. Although the exact location is never explicitly stated, it is off-puttingly presented as some sort of "exotic" jungle. Through these risqué clips, we learn that Autumn lives happily with her parents and her best friend, Hope, a gorgeous black jaguar she grew up with. (While some environments are created flat through effects, the animals are real—two rescue jaguars, Hope and Gem, depict feral cats of varying ages.)

When poachers murder Hope's mother one day, putting Autumn in danger, Saul decides it's time to leave the rainforest in search of a safer life better suited to raising his daughter. When Autumn discovers letters that their close friend, Aboriginal Chief Orei (Wayne Charles Baker), has been sending to her father for years, she discovers that Hope is in danger from ruthless poachers , and decided to travel to the Amazon to save her again.

Autumn's agoraphobic biology teacher Anya (Emily Bett Richards) figures out what she's doing in the most incredible way when she panics and heads to the airport to buy a two-month ticket. Minutes before the flight takes off, stop Autumn and remember to take the injured hedgehog with her to save it. The whole development is as ridiculous and ultimately a headache as it sounds. It's anyone's guess as to why Anya didn't just call Autumn's father or tell the airline there was an unaccompanied minor on the international flight.

When they arrive at an unnamed Amazon destination, "Autumn and the Black Jaguar" takes a turn for the worse, brutalizing Anya's femininity and mental health issues. Dressed in skirt suits and high heels, she's often just a metaphor for hysterics and screaming, and as time goes by, she becomes more and more of a nuisance to Autumn. Meanwhile, Chief Aure and his (again, generally created and unnamed) tribe were subjected to aggressive treatment of their own. In the costume and makeup department, there's almost nothing about Ole's people that looks authentic, culturally specific, or lived in it.

If the film had given The Fall and Hope a deeper storyline throughout, it would have been at least worth rooting for, an emotional thread that adults and kids alike could relate to. But "The Fall and the Black Jaguar" also shortchanged the department's viewers, who were content with largely lifeless scenes in which the two simply ran around. So once they reunite, the effect is lackluster - there are far more powerful clips of human-animal reunions on YouTube and social media.

Meanwhile, when bad boss Doria Duggan (Kelly Hope Taylor) reveals her evil plan to capture the jaguar, somehow the stakes are never high enough. The threats jaguars face from poaching, deforestation and extinction are real and important issues that all viewers, especially children, should know about and care about. Alas, "The Fall and the Black Jaguar" blames these pressing issues on a movie that looks and feels like an after-school special.

Elsewhere, it's unclear whether the film conveys the right message about how humans should interact with wild animals and wild animals. A certain level of fear of the rainforest and wild cats such as jaguars is respectful and appropriate. But in the movie, the Amazon jungle is portrayed as a playground, and Hope comes dangerously close to looking like a pet. The most egregious offense in "Autumn and the Black Jaguar" is that Anya condescendingly preaches some kind of white savior to the people of the Amazon, reminding them that while wealthy people like Doria may give money to their families, what they actually do is What they do is endanger their families. Children's future.

Meister has certainly made some profound contributions by working with rescue jaguars and protecting them for the rest of their lives in animal sanctuaries. Unfortunately, that's where The Fall and the Black Jaguar's virtues end.