Arctic Tale

From National Geographic comes the beautiful documentary Arctic Tale, which follows a polar bear and walrus as they raise their babies. You'll only spend ninety minutes watching it, but the filmmakers spent fifteen years creating it, so make sure to appreciate all their hard work. You might be distracted by the cute animals and the beautiful scenery, but keep in mind this isn't a Hollywood movie with special effects to make the polar bears do whatever they want. Nature documentaries take an incredible amount of care, patience, and work.

Narrated by Queen Latifah, you'll see a polar bear mother and her two babies learning how to survive amidst the shrinking ice caps. In the good old days, it probably would have held audiences' attentions to merely focus on the cute white fuzzies, but as Queen Latifah so succinctly says in Last Holiday, "enough is never enough" and there's an parallel storyline to help those who get bored. A walrus mother and her little pup also struggle with the warmer water and longer swims between ice landings. This movie definitely promotes the message of climate change, and it doesn't shy away from teaching children the dangers of global warming. If you're not in the mood for something with such a tragic undertone, try renting March of the Penguins instead.

Kiddy Warning: Obviously, you have control over your own children. However, one of the animals dies, and you might want to warn your child beforehand or skip the scene entirely.

'Arctic Tale' for me was very difficult to rate and review. There was no doubt about me seeing it in the first place, being a long-term lover of documentaries and loving the animals included and depicted. The Arctic is a very familiar habitat in documentaries with it being explored frequently, but never feels old because it and its inhabitants (also frequently seen) are timeless. Queen Latifah is a bit take and leave for me and part of me thought is she a good fit.

Seeing 'Arctic Tale', it is a long way from bad. There are many fantastic things here and much of the footage is captivating, not to mention that it is impeccably made. 'Arctic Tale' also struck me as wildly uneven, with the narration (writing more than the delivery actually), music and the uncertain target audience being issues. It is a long way from being one of the best nature documentaries out there and is not a milestone, but it is also a long way from being one of the worst and there is no doubt that it had very good intentions.

Will start with what 'Arctic Tale' does well, which is a lot. The production values are absolutely impeccable all round. This is another fine example of an environment that is exquisite to look at but very harsh with its challenges, photographed vividly and beautifully. This is much more than cute animals in beautiful environments like the advertising may suggest. Absolutely loved the animals, which were a great mix of adorable, sympathetic and dangerous. Celia is impossible to resist and any scene depicting any kind of parental love is enough to warm the heart, will agree that the male polar bear veers on the sadistic side but not in a way that unbalances things.

The footage takes the breath away, evoking a wide range of emotions while also being educational (if not innovative). Did appreciate that it didn't have human scenes that choppily interrupted the flow, and appreciated too that it did address the issues with global warming and its consequences (though it could have gone further with it). This is actually very important to address and to me it does need to be addressed more if some are seemingly not taking its seriousness in. The story is very cute and touching, making one effortlessly root for the animals. While the narration was patchy in writing, Latifah actually brings sass and sympathetic edge to the delivery.

For my tastes though, the writing of the narration was too schmaltzy and tried too hard to be hip with some now very outdated language, there are also parts where it felt on the preachy side and that there could have been a lot less of it. As a result it did make me question the target audience, there are times where it does have story content that aims and does succeed in doing so in being accessible to children and then has information in terminology and tone that is more understandable for adults.

Didn't care for the music that much either, it was too overpowering, occasionally spelled out the emotions too much and needed a gentler touch to fit more with the more intimate parts rather than one that was trying to be more cinematic than needed. It was also too modern and like an attempt to appeal to a wider audience or something. Also thought that 'Arctic Tale' plays it too safe, the conflict could have been bigger and bolder (not enough of the pull no punches approach here) and there is a sense that it was trying to be careful not to offend. Admirable but it did mean that in terms of exploring the facts properly and addressing the global warming it was a bit too sketchy.

In conclusion, beautifully made and well intentioned but doesn't quite reach full potential. 6/10.

On the land of the Arctic, animals have to fight the cold and lack of food. They hunt, nest and reproduce. We see the loving interaction and teaching skills between polar bear mothers and babies, and walrus mothers take good care of their babies. Global warming has caused baby polar bear Nanu to struggle to survive the lack of food, warning us to protect the environment and protect the homes of Arctic animals.

Global Warming is a real threat. The majority of scientists across the globe agree on this (there is a small dissenting group but nothing compared to those that believe in the theory). And wildlife filmmakers Adam Ravetch and Sarah Robertson believed there were ways to prove it. So they embarked on a fifteen year odyssey to film the lives of two creatures: Nanu the polar bear and Seela the Walrus.

The arctic is where these two live, and the arctic is the battleground most climatologists point to whenever they are asked for proof of global warming theory. It is important to let our children know that this area is in danger—as are its animals—thanks to the changes in global climate. And children are who this G-rated film is directed at.

There's the cuddly polar bear scene when Nanu is born with her "brother", and the protective nature of walruses as they fret over their young. And there's the bathroom humor of the walruses as they eat clams and then expel flatulence in roaring surround sound.

But there's also some things that might frighten the very young. Nanu and her ilk are meat eaters; in fact, they love walrus and seal meat. Some bloody carcasses are seen on several occasions, so parents who haven't discussed life-cycles with their young ones should beware. The fact that the movie-makers didn't give Nanu's "brother" and Seela's "auntie" a name should also give you pause (crewman 19!).

To help aid in the marketing of this film, you'll often hear "From the people that brought you MARCH OF THE PENGUINS..." but don't be fooled. Neither director nor the writers involved here were affiliated with March of the Penguins. Both films were aided with production dollars by National Geographic Films but that's about it.

Although March of the Penguins held more astonishing film footage, this film can boast some exquisite shots of its own. Following polar bears around as they swim in the open ocean and watching walruses suckle their newborns was something I found phenomenally well filmed. The vanishing ice flows are also pointedly shown as months into what should have been the arctic winter turns into open seas instead of frozen waters.

Queen Latifah (HAIRSPRAY) does a great job narrating. Never over-the-top, her tone was perfect for the settings. Always.

But I think Morgan Freeman did a bit better job during March of the Penguins. All-in-all, it's a superior documentary that stands head and shoulders above this one. But that shouldn't shame Arctic Tale at all. It's a decent documentary.

Just decent.

"Arctic Tale" is a National Geographic nature documentary blown up to widescreen proportions. Exquisitely photographed by Adam Ravetch (who, along with Sarah Roberston, also served as co-director of the film), the movie follows the exploits of an adorable polar bear cub named Nanu and an equally irresistible baby walrus named Celia as they learn to cope and survive (with more than a little help from their mommies) in the harsh conditions of the Great White North.

Weaknesses first. "Arctic Tale" suffers from a failing common to many nature documentaries aimed at a general audience - namely the tendency to sanitize and whitewash some of the harsher realities of life in the wild to avoid offending the sensibilities of an often squeamish audience. We don't mind oohing and ahhing over a cuddly little bear, all bleary-eyed and squinty, finally emerging from the dark den of her childhood to the bright light of day - but being compelled to watch her tear some other poor defenseless creature to pieces in order to perpetuate her own survival would be something else again. Similarly, it's one thing to anthropomorphize an animal; it's quite another to do so on the level of a Disney cartoon (the animals here do just about everything but talk). Thus, not only do we get cutesy, folksy narration (voiced by Queen Latifah) that sounds as if it were written for an audience of restless first-graders (which it may very well have been) but a sappy theme song that sets a schmaltzy tone from the outset. The movie also goes in for such corny effects as playing "We Are Family" on the soundtrack as we're introduced to a tight knit community of sunbathing walruses - or treating us to a full-out flatulence contest among the members of that same group. For some reason, the movie seems to feel that we just wouldn't be all that interested in the lives of these creatures if we weren't somehow convinced that, underneath it all, they're JUST LIKE US.

Not that we aren't treated to the darker, kill-or-be-killed, survival-of-the-fittest side of nature as well, though rest assured the "kills" are kept at a discreet enough distance to avoid traumatizing the little ones - or even the more weak-stomached and fainthearted members of the adult audience, for that matter.

On the positive side, the movie makes a poignant case for the tremendous threat global warming poses to these wonderful creatures and offers proof positive as to just how quickly the rapidly-changing climate is shattering the fragile ecosystem that serves as their home. Ravetch manages to get his camera into amazing places, so much so that we often wonder just how genuine some of the "story" we are witnessing actually is (the movie was culled from over 800 hours of footage gathered over a period of fifteen years, not the mere twelve-month-long period the plot line would suggest).

Yet, if you can get past the pedestrian commentary, you'll find in "Arctic Tale" a visually stunning, frequently thrilling and occasionally heartbreaking story of struggle and survival, one filled with enough urgency and passion to get us up and over most of the teeth-gritting stuff.