Whispers: An Elephant's Tale

1st watched 12/14/2001 - 4 out of 10 (Dir-Dereck Joubert): So so tale of an elephant from birth to young adulthood and all his wonderful adventures.(aka. Losing his mother, losing his best friend, getting attacked by lions, getting attacked by the takers[human hunters] etc.) There is so many rough times for this elephant named Whispers that when you're done watching you're glad you're not an elephant. But seriously, this movie uses the same basic storyline of many better kids movies(Aka. Land Before Time, Homeward Bound etc.), a quest for a better place which for this elephant would be with his mom whom he lost early in the movie. No matter where they go they are stalked by lions and humans so I'm not sure there is any safe haven which is the point of the movie(family is the answer no matter where you are) but despite the attempt to have a genuine positive ending the movie still leaves you depressed, but not ready to stop elephant killers(which I think was the 2nd reason for making the movie). The bottom line is that this movie is ok, but I don't even think it's done well enough for even kids to get through even though the movie is only 72 minutes long.

Hi There, I am the Grandmother of eleven beautiful Grandchildren. On Saturday, May 14th, 2005, My Grandchildren, their Mother's, and Myself sat down to watch "Whisper-An Elephants tale." This film is rated "G."We are all wondering if there might be some mistake in the rating of this movie. The children, their Mothers and Myself were very disturbed by the graphic detail of the human and animal behavior in this film. We were under the impression, according to the brief description of the movie on the back of the box, that we were going to watch something similar to Homeward bound. It even stated that. This movie was Not even close in comparison. Of course the many animals were wild instead of dogs and a cat. That would have been understandable, But Please this was a child's movie rated "G." There wasn't a warning of any kind of it's graphic nature. Anyway, a few minutes into this movie and you can see why we are concerned. A half hour further and it rose to disgust. We turned off the movie due to the terribly upset children. Their mother's and myself were in shock and did a double check on the back of the DVD box for the rating once again. My Daughter had the stronger stomach and watched a bit more to see just how bad it got. She was even disgusted at the graphic detail in the animal attacks. Just so you would know this, in case you didn't, we thought we would write to you and request that the rating be changed to "PG" so that other parents and children will be warned before hand and won't be left with those images in their heads like we have. We're not sure if this is the proper channel to follow to make this request or not, but if it isn't would you be so kind as to forward this to the one who can handle it for us. Thank You, so much, for your understanding.

I have a three and a five year old. They both love this movie. I think adults that try to rate kids' movies need to take into account that they are not the intended audience. Kids don't care if the plot and theme have been overdone. They don't care if the voices and the animal movement done sync up perfectly, although I actually think they did a pretty good job with this movie. I am actually always impressed when anyone can pull off a movie like this with wild animals. In fact, although I've seen lots of movies with cats, dogs, cows, etc. I haven't seen many with what are essentially wild animals, even if they'r from a zoo. I don't know where or how they filmed this, but I thought they did a great job, and again, my kids love this movie. It's definitely oriented toward kids, it's not too scary and it's got just enough action in it. I totally disagree with the harsh reviews above, and I'm not an easy sell. It's perfect for young ones.

When still very young, little elephant Whispers gets separated from his mother while they both flee from hunters. Whispers gets found by a group of elephants and forces himself under the wing of Groove - who wants to be more independent and find herself. The two set off on their quest to find Whispers' mother but the dangers of the jungle are never far away, whether they be man or beast.

Stuck with several options for children's' movies on a UK bank holiday, I plumed to put this one on simply on the basis of the voice cast involved. The plot is the usual fare with `cute' baby elephant hunting for mother with a bigger, more cynical companion. The thin plot is only used to show the obstacles facing elephants in the wild and to do so in a cute sort of way that will win children over to the animals. In this regard I had to wonder why anyone would turn to this film for this purpose alone. A National Geographic show will look as good as this does and also show the elephants without having to give them voices and comedy characters. If I had the choice over I'd pick a different movie for children or pick a wildlife show for stuff about elephants. The material is not very funny and doesn't really engage, thus leaving it's value as one of the footage - something that a wildlife programme would do as well.

The footage doesn't really fit with the voices and there are no animatronic touches to help it mix. The result is that the voices feel very separate from the animals and takes away from the characters again making it harder to really care about them or get into the story. The very Babe-like Whispers is played by Derryberry (who's name alone deserves a mention!); she plays it a bit too cutesy but it's fitting for a Disney film. Bassett deserves better than this but her voice work is good even if it doesn't fit with the images (true of all the characters). Lumley thinks this is below her and you can hear it in her voice, Archer is hard to catch, White is a weird addition but not as strange as Rivers, Tone Loc and Di Maggio. None of them manage to connect with the images onscreen and it is a problem that weakens the whole film.

Overall this is not a very good film as the plot is basic and the voice work is separate from the images, making the characters difficult to engage with. The film looks great and has tonnes of good nature footage but there are better places to go to get this, leaving the film rather lacking in any specific value and only having the stars and the name Disney to attract those to it.

In Africa, a baby elephant (Debi Derryberry) is born to Gentle Heart (Anne Archer). Sometime later their herd is attacked by poachers (which they call "Takers") and they baby is separated from his mother. The baby is eventually found by Groove (Angela Bassett) from another herd of elephants, and because the baby has lost his ability to trumpet he is mockingly called Whispers by other elephants. Now Whispers must face a perilous journey to reunite with his mother.

Whispers: An Elephant's Tale comes to us from filmmakers and conservationists Dereck Joubert and Beverly Joubert who have worked on several books and films for National Geographic. Produced and based on a story by the Jouberts, Whispers marks their first (and so far only) foray into narrative features with this collaboration with the Walt Disney Company remaining a one off experiment that seems to have been mostly forgotten. Upon release the film received negative reviews from whatever critics saw it, and according to box office estimates the film only made about $500,000 against its estimated $4 million budget. On the surface Whispers seems like something that's well enough intentioned, but in execution it feels like a rather clumsy attempt at children's entertainment from someone who's not well versed in narrative storytelling.

With Whispers, the movie is essentially a mix of wildlife footage shot by the Jouberts over an 18 month long period that was then dubbed over by various voice actors and celebrity voices to jury-rig a narrative out of the footage and the end result unfortunately isn't great. Not only is the nature of the wildlife footage not conducive to forming a seamless narrative, but the dubbed over voicetrack on the footage is really annoying with some obnoxious groan worthy jokes or contemporary references that couldn't feel more forced or awkward if they tried. While I'm aware the objective of this movie is making the animals relatable to small children, I've seen this type of thing done better for kids through usage of a narrator rather than crudely done silly "hyuck hyuck" dialogue that the writers think will appeal to kids. Even if you want to go for something more broad like that, Chris and Martin Kratt did that sort of thing better with their PBS shows like Kratts' Creatures and Zoboomafoo so Whispers was trying to get you to pay for something you could watch on PBS for free.

I really can't recommend Whispers: An Elephant's Tale on any level. As a documentary it's anemic and not all that informative, as a narrative it's shallow and unengaging, as a comedy it's stupid and lowbrow, and as children's entertainment it's pandering and condescending.