Survie au fil de l'eau

A huge improvement on the quality of National Geographic's camera work. A very conventional Okavango documentary and no new ground broken. It is let down by Angela Basset's embarrassingly poor script and dreadful delivery. Her breathy monotone performance is saturated with saccharine artificial drama. A stereotypical bed time story delivery that completely lets down the otherwise food production. National Geographic would do well to find a narrator with true understanding and passion for the subject matter - not something that can be synthesised by a rather ordinary actress.

Great footage, horrible narration. Beautiful video and cool angles and perspectives, but we just couldn't get over the horrendous script and voice performance.

No. Angela Bassett is not 'a black queen.' She's an absolutely atrocious narrator and should stay clear away from this job as an altruistic endeavor - i.e., that she should ruin another, otherwise, decent production with her extremely affected breathy obnoxious voice. What she adds to the story is trite at best and annoying, most always. I really like her as an actress. Honestly. But, she is an absolutely horrific narrator...one of the worst that I've ever heard in my entire six-decade life....and if you're reading this review, Angela Bassett, STAY AWAY from narrating. Please.

The visuals and cinematographic efforts in this are terrific, including some angles that I personally hadn't seen before, despite it not being particularly groundbreaking subject wise.

The narration however was absolutely abysnal, to the point of having to stop watching half way through. Forced, over-dramatised narration, bringing some sort of ridiculous 'good and evil' and even slightly feminist tone to these animals and ecosystems, which by definition couldn't care less.

Recommended visual watch, if you turn the sound and/or subs off, but who watches a documentary without sound. If this existed without narration, it would be 10000% better. Sorry, but this is by FAR the worst narration I've heard in a long time!

This documentary brings you up close and personal with the wide variety of animals that spread throughout the Okavango River located in South Africa. It is no question that biodiversity is crucial through the grasslands of Okavango and the documentary does a great job providing al the details of how the hundreds of species whom which reside on this land, fight to survive and contribute to the cycle of life. Discussing how simply the movement of hippos contributes to the underwater life to how monkeys pollinate flowers to how when the "the flood" comes, it changes the life of all the animals and how they must survive there. Then once the water has dried up yet again, the animals must re-adjust and adapt to the driest of lands. Angela Basset does a great job narrating the lives of these beautiful creatures on earth.