The Missing Lynx(2008)

Submitted by Tornado Dragon

One night, as Noé takes a stroll through his ship’s cargo bay where Lincesa and all the other captured animals are being kept, he passes by Lincesa’s cage, and she says to him that she wishes that he knew how it feels to be held prisoner in a cage. Suddenly, Noé reveals that he can talk to animals when he replies that he DOES know what that feels like, but there’s a very good reason why she is locked in a cage. However, unwilling to talk with her out in the open any further, he issues an order to a subordinate over his earpiece to have Lincesa’s cage brought to his cabin on the top deck. After he meets Lincesa up there, he electronically blackens all of the windows so no one can watch him speak to her, and he proceeds to tell her his story: He always possessed the ability to talk to animals, but when he tried to tell people that he had this special talent, he was considered crazy and locked up in an insane asylum. After spending many miserable years there, he got himself released by denying that he ever could speak to animals, and he opted to keep his special ability a secret from the world from that point forward. Then, after he found other people who possessed the same ability as he did, he decided that he had to use his gift to help out endangered animals. He first started using his ability to amass his now-incredible fortune (having fish guide him to treasures in sunken ships, having moles find underground oil pockets for him, etc.), and then, once he had acquired enough money, he started to gather up the necessary manpower and resources in order to find and capture endangered animals (such as the Iberian Lynx species that Felix and Lincesa belongs to), and his intention is to bring them to a private island he owns that is far from humans and thus will enable all of them to be kept safe from extinction. He explains that he is doing this both out of gratitude to the animals for giving him his wealth and because he feels that the current solutions to keep endangered animals from going extinct simply do not work. He then caps off his explanation by asking Lincesa, “What’s the point in being free if you are not alive?” However, she first turns his words around on him by asking, “What’s the point in being alive if you are not free?”, then states that being kept on this island will be no different than being locked up in a cage, and she lastly reminds him that he didn’t like being locked up himself. After hearing this, Noé begins to realize that his intentions aren’t as noble as he thought they were.

Meanwhile, as Felix, Gus, Beeea, Astarté, and Rupert are speaking with Diogenes, an environmentally conscious vulture that they just met, they notice Newmann and his mercenaries arriving on the scene in their helicopter to try to capture them again. While Beeea and Astarté distract the mercenaries, the rest of the gang use various items that Diogenes collected for recycling to create a makeshift transport for themselves so they can more effectively outrun their pursuers, and Beeea manages to steal one of the mercenaries’ parachutes to use as a sail for the transport. However, after Felix and company get their transport moving at a good speed, Felix – having come to the conclusion that his natural bad luck is the reason why Newmann and his men have been able to find him and his friends repeatedly – jumps off of it and stays behind, thinking that his companions won’t get caught if he is no longer around them. However, Newmann manages to catch up with Felix’s friends soon after, destroying their transport and knocking them all out in the process, and he makes ready to cage them all up – except for Rupert, who disappears in the confusion.

While Felix is beginning his long walk back to Doñana National Park, Rupert appears in front of him, and we learn from both his confession to Felix and Noé explaining this to Lincesa that Rupert has been acting as a double agent for Noé: After Felix, Gus, Beeea, and Astarté escaped his men during their raid on the park’s animal center earlier in the film, Noé made a deal with Rupert – who was among the animals captured in the raid, along with his family – where, in exchange for setting his family free (since moles aren’t endangered), Rupert would help him track down Felix and the others. Noé then tagged him with a microchip and orchestrated his escape so he could return to his friends (where he told them that he had simply escaped Noé’s ship), and because of that microchip, that is how Newmann and his men have always been able to locate them. Though initially angry with Rupert for betraying him and their friends, Felix happily realizes that his bad luck isn’t to blame after all, so he hurries back towards his friends. He finds them just as Newmann is collecting them all up, so he runs and leaps towards Newmann and scratches his face. Infuriated, Newmann tries to shoot Felix with an actual bullet instead of a tranquilizer dart while he is running off with his now-revived companions, but he suddenly gets a call from Noé, throwing his concentration off and making him miss. After answering the phone, he is told by Noé to stop the operation because they need to rethink the whole plan. However, already suspicious of Noé and his agenda (Noé has not disclosed the true purpose of capturing all of these animals to him or anyone else) and fed up with his eccentricities, Newmann decides to head back to his ship to “renegotiate their contract” while also pledging to himself that Felix will die. As Rupert endures a verbal reaming from his friends – minus Felix – for his treachery, Felix gets fed up with it and tells them all to shut up because it is just a waste of time, and he declares that the important thing now is to find Noé’s ship. Gus quickly comes to believe that Rupert knows the way there, but Rupert informs him that he actually doesn’t. However, he tells them that they can find it by getting in touch with the “inter-mole network” (i.e. contacting his mole brethren and having them work together to locate the vessel for them).

When Newmann returns to Noé’s ship, which is anchored on Bolonia Beach, he confronts Noé in his cabin and usurps command of both the ship and the operation from him before putting him in a cage. He then takes a look at Noé’s hi-tech map of the ship and the surrounding areas, and with some forced assistance from Noé on how to read certain parts of it, he realizes that Felix and his friends are on their way here and that Felix seeks to rescue Lincesa. Newmann thus seizes Lincesa and takes her away with him, intending to use her as bait to get to Felix, and he orders his subordinates to prepare a “welcoming party” for Felix and his friends by setting up numerous traps in a large display of Noé’s island, which is situated in the center of the cargo bay. After his men are finished, Newmann orders them to knock out all of the captured animals with gas, and he makes it clear to them that, while they can do whatever they like with Felix’s friends, Felix is his quarry and his alone.

When Felix and company reach Bolonia Beach, Astarté flies towards Noé’s ship to scout it out for potential threats. After she finds Lincesa in the cargo bay and tells her that they and the others are all here and that they will get her out of here, Lincesa warns her about the mercenaries hiding in the center of the bay as well as the booby traps that they set up, and she adds that they have to free Noé because he can help them and Rupert will know how to find him. After Astarté reports her findings to her friends, they all try to sneak aboard the ship, and Gus, Beeea, and Rupert manage to get onto the deck above the cargo bay (despite a few close calls) while Felix and Astarté enter the cargo bay itself. However, just after Felix and Astarte get inside, Newmann orders his goons to close the bay’s door and have the ship taken out into the open sea so they can’t escape. When Felix spots Newmann heading in his direction, he goes into a passageway underneath the floor to get away, but Newmann pursues him. Eventually, Felix tricks Newmann into shooting an explosive fuel container, and though it blows a hole in the ship and causes it to start to slowly sink, Newmann is undaunted. A ship-wide warning is triggered, which is seen by Gus, Beeea, and Rupert while they are in Noé’s cabin trying to free him from his cage, and just after they get Noé out, he points out to them that all of the caged animals are being safely evacuated aboard inflatable rafts built into the bottoms of their cages. All of the mercenaries flee the ship, and Newmann – who, by this point, is now completely obsessed with killing Felix – gets back out into the cargo bay and grabs hold of Lincesa. After Rupert points out to Noé over one of his security cameras that Felix is trying to get back out into the cargo bay as well through one of the hatches, Noé tries to open it for Felix, but discovers that he can’t because a broken piece of metal has jammed the door shut. Rupert thus crawls through the vents until he finds the hatch, and after pulling the metal piece off of it, Felix gets out safely.

Soon after, Felix notices Newmann at the far end of the cargo bay holding up Lincesa in one hand and wielding his rifle in the other. Newmann tries to take a shot at Felix, but Gus suddenly appears behind him and stops him by jumping on his head, and this gives Astarté a chance to fly in and snatch the rifle from his grasp and bring it down at Felix’s feet. After Astarté collects Gus and flies outside with him, Felix starts running towards Newmann to rescue Lincesa, and he bypasses the traps by running on one of the conveyor belts unloading the caged animals into the ocean. Lincesa tries to fight Newmann herself, but he dazes her by throwing her against the wall, and seconds later, Felix leaps onto Newmann and struggles with him until they both fall to the floor. Felix then decides to use his natural bad luck to his advantage by clinging onto Newmann and making him badly hurt himself on all the traps, and Newmann ends up collapsing to the ground unconscious. Felix and Lincesa reunite, but as they run off to try to find a way to get off the ship, Newmann wakes up and begs for the lynxes to help him, claiming that he has just gotten trapped. Unwilling to let Newmann drown, Felix starts to run towards him to save him, but it all turns out to be a lie when Newmann reclaims his rifle and fires a few shots at him. Fortunately for Felix, they all miss, and moments later, the tilt of the sinking ship causes a broken studded wrecking ball used for one of the traps to roll down and strike Newmann, and he sinks under the water presumably dead. Felix and Lincesa get off the ship on their own life raft, as do Noé and the rest of their friends, and they all watch as the ship sinks to the bottom of the sea. The lynxes affirm their love for each other, and Noé praises Felix for his bravery and remarks that, if all lynxes are as brave as he is, it is going to take a lot to render them extinct.

Felix, Lincesa, and their companions return to Doñana National Park, and sometime later, Felix and Lincesa have a cub, and it is presented to the other animals at the park by Gus in a parody of Simba’s presentation in the opening scene of The Lion King. In a mid-credits scene, it is revealed that Newmann is still alive, but his ordeal with Felix has caused him to develop a phobia of all cats.