To Walk with Lions

Made 32 years after Born Free, this is more 'labour of love' than a cash cow sequel. Not surprisingly, in view of the marriage breakdown and murders of the Kenyan wildlife conservationists Joy and George Adamson, Schultz's biopic, spanning George's 18-year struggle to hold on to his Kora reserve, tells a very different story. Reality bites. The lions, too - as wild 'n' broke Englishman Tony Fitzjohn (Michie) discovers when he takes a job at Kora and is promptly pounced on. The movie paints a convincing picture of perfection exhausted; as an action adventure and character study, however, it grips only in bursts. The dramatised account of the substitute father/son relationship between Adamson (Harris) and Fitzjohn is underripe and lacking any sense of development. Adamson's 'sublime communion' with his lions feels a bit like the macho flipside of the babying ways of his wife in the earlier film.