Arctic Tale (review)
National Geographic Films, the people who brought us March of the Penguins, now give us, in this powerfully moving documentary, an adorable baby polar bear and a cute baby walrus, creatures struggling to survive among the melting ice of the North Pole. Beautiful up-close footage of a landscape that is disappearing -- thanks to the centuries of human dumping of CO2 into the atmosphere -- and its endangered wildlife inhabitants brings us a more intimate look than we’ve ever seen before of the lives and adventures of animals we thought we knew... animals with more complex existences facing more touching and troubling trials than we ever realized. You’d have to have a heart of stone not to be moved by their plights, and not to want to run out of the theater bent on saving the planet for all of us, human and critter alike.
viewed at a private screening with an audience of critics
rated G
official site | IMDB
comments
posted by Count Shrimpula (Mon Jul 30 07, 1:29PM)
Isn't this the one narrated by Queen Latifah? With the trailer that includes the joke about someone starting "a game of 'pull my flipper'" and a bunch of farts dubbed in over the footage of the walruses? I had thought this movie looked good until I saw that trailer, and then I was really upset that they were going to take all of that beautiful nature footage and dumb it down with a bunch of fart jokes and silly sound effects. I guess it's just one of those stupidly misleading trailers, then?
posted by MaryAnn (Mon Jul 30 07, 3:56PM)
Yes, this is the one narrated by Queen Latifah. And yes, there are farts in it. But I don't think they were "dubbed in."
Yes, there's some silly stuff here. But it's all in aid of demonstrating that these are intelligent, social creatures -- hey, just like humans! -- who are suffering because of what we're doing to the planet.
posted by Count Shrimpula (Mon Jul 30 07, 4:54PM)
All right, well if they're real farts, that's ok. They sounded dubbed in the trailer.
I've got nothing against silly stuff, I quite enjoy silly. I just don't want to go watch an hour and a half of beautiful nature footage with Queen Latifah making fart jokes over it, is all. And that's pretty much what the trailer made it look like, unfortunately. I'm glad to hear that's not the case, and I'll have to put this back on my "to see" list.
posted by MaryAnn (Mon Jul 30 07, 10:06PM)
It's not an hour and a half of fart jokes, I promise.
posted by John Carlos (Wed Aug 01 07, 12:49AM)
I saw this on the weekend (early release in Los Angeles). It is a fantastic movie (assuming you like sweeping nature docs like me ;-) I do know that "yes" the farts are real, I saw something on TV about that (believe it or not). I'm sure they were augmented for humorous effect - but what are you going to do? This movie is so much more than that! Go see it for sure! This review is spot on.