Director Gilles de Maistre offers a touching story, if not original and believable.
Autumn Edison (Lumi Pollack and Airam Camacho, who plays her as a child) is a teenager who spent her childhood in the Amazon rainforest and befriended a female jaguar named Hope. After a heated discussion with her biology teacher Anja (Emily Bett Rickards), Autumn is expelled from school despite learning that the place where she spent her childhood is in danger.
She therefore decides to take the first plane to South America with her teacher in tow to save Hope from the clutches of poachers who want to capture her.
Written by Prune de Maistre, the filmmaker's wife – the duo most notably showed us Mia and the White Lion – this story aims to alert moviegoers to the threats facing both the fauna of the Amazon rainforest and the tribes that those who still populate it are threatening. The speech is therefore full of good intentions.
Gilles de Maistre also decided to use real jaguars for the role of Hope and to employ the services of an animal specialist for filming. This aspect of the film The Last Jaguar is fascinating, the scenes between the two actresses playing the role of Autumn take your breath away with their beauty.
Unfortunately, the rest of the children's feature film cannot keep up. The scenario is full of incredible twists and comments that fall into reduced clichés (especially the portrait of the poachers or the way the Amazon tribe is portrayed). And that's a shame because the topic definitely deserves a film.
Rating: 2 out of 5
The last Jaguar will be hitting cinema screens from March 1st.