Bienvenue sur l'île des loups

"Island of the Sea Wolves" is a four-episode mini-series which debuted on Netflix. It's set on Vancouver Island and follows several different animals over the course of a year...with each episode covering (approximately) one season. The show follows wolves, marmots, bears, bald eagles and NOT just wolves despite the title. In fact, the title to me just seems pretty arbitrary. It could have just as soon been called "Island of the Marmots"!

So what did I like about it? The cinematography is breathtaking. While not as grand as shows like "Earth" or films like the recent Disney nature documentaries, it has wonderful closeup shots of many wonderful creatures and the geography is lovely as well...and all well worth seeing.

And, what did I not love about the shows? The narration...which is OFTEN a problem with nature films. Too often the narration is very non-scientific and humanizes the animals...giving them names and even trying, occasionally, to be funny. I personally don't like this and wish the film was more scientific in focus. But, I guess there's a balance...too scientific and fewer might watch it. All I know is that it looks great...and a few times I winced at what was said in the shows.

Gorgeous photography and a wonderful landscape, but this series is ruined by its cloying, anthropomorphizing narration. Very quickly the viewer begins to notice how footage is being cobbled together for dramatic effect rather than accurate story telling. Very disappointing indeed. It could have been so much better without this Disney twist. And giving the animals human names like Esmeralda is downright nauseating. I wish there was a version of this series without narration, it would be so much better and less manipulative. This kind of program encourages the worst kind of romanticized views of a natural world that is already being destroyed by humans!

Before watching I decided to read the reviews first and based on , so many complaining about the narration of this documentary , I almost declined to watch it! Thank god I decided to give it a try and loved it! We don't always have to be brutally fact driven. Any intelligent person knows that life, especially animal life can be violent and difficult! The narrative was almost Disney like. Giving the animals names made me feel closer and more connected to them! We are now learning a lot more about animal behaviour and we are finding out that they behave and are more like us than we previously thought! In order to just have a cold and basically descriptive narration keeps us distanced from them!

I can only recommend this series especially for children because they learn that there is danger and death in nature but they also see that animals can overcome odds and survive!

The photography is amazing, the closeup shots nothing but superb and the landscape is absolutely beautiful! Makes me feel sorry I didn't move to Vancouver when I had the chance!

As a BC resident who's spent countless hours in our lavish nature wonderland, it's nice to see the area getting a bit of a spotlught. The visuals in this 3 part series are outstanding. The 4k (well, as much of 4k as you get get via WiFi Netflix) is great and very sharp. That's the series high point.

No shade to will Arnett, but the dialogue is just awful. These are animals, stop anthropomorphizing them. Stop giving them names and treating them as though they are humans. They are not. It's cringy and completely unnecessary. It would help if the dialogue was also correct. Incorrectly naming both plants and animals is bush league. Storms have not increased in frequency or in stature here in BC. Keep your climate alarmism to yourself, we don't deal in fallacies here, just facts.

All in all its good, even better if you can throw your favorite album on and turn this joke of an audio track off.

As someone who enjoys nature documentaries, this one is amazing as it is focused on something new and concentrated only on to one single island. The 3 parts showing 3 different seasons is a fantastic visual watch. But it would have much better to show the fourth season too.

The narration is quite good but anthropomorphizing the animals makes it like a series rather than a documentary. Though the narrator explains and points out facts and ecosystem cycling, the background music rather gives it a cinematic mood and I'm a bit sceptic on whether that is on a bright side or not. I also do feel that some music notes especially adjourning the grieving and cheerless events, could have been avoided or changed to a better slow monotone. Naming the Marmots were ok as they were grown in captivity but the wild ones, I think it was quite unnecessary.