3.5 stars (out of five). Rating: G, but awfully intense and grim for young viewers
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.30.09
Buy DVD: Earth
• Buy Blu-Ray: Disney Nature Earth [Blu-ray]
Disney's Earth — the much-ballyhooed first release from DisneyNature, a new studio imprint that will focus on wildlife documentaries — is a bait-and-switch con job.
Nowhere in any of this film's self-congratulatory promotional information — and certainly not in any of the TV spots or movie theater previews — will you learn that this film is little more than "best of" highlights from the sumptuous 2006 Discovery Channel series, Planet Earth
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| Even with their mother's care, only 50 percent of new polar bear cubs survive their first year, and more are lost when they first leave their mother, to make their way alone. The polar bears followed in Earth were filmed on Kong Karls Land, a group of islands between the Barents Sea and the Arctic Ocean. In this land, part of Norway, the "midnight sun" lasts from April 20 until Aug. 23, and the polar night lasts from Oct. 26 through Feb. 15. |
Indeed, this big-screen version was released in the United Kingdom in 2007, with Patrick Stewart replacing Sigourney Weaver as narrator. Here in the States, Stewart has been replaced by James Earl Jones. (That's Hollywood!)
Mind you, the already opulent photography looks even more stunning on the big screen, and directors Alastair Fothergill and Mark Linfield are to be congratulated for the magnificence and enormity of their accomplishment.
But I was expecting a new film, thank you very much, and I became increasingly puzzled by the sense of deja vu that accompanied last week's preview screening. Eventually, though, all doubts were erased: the spectacular slow-motion shot of a great white shark chomping into a seal was far too memorable, as was the chilling, disheartening saga of the desperate polar bear that tries unsuccessfully to make a meal of a walrus cub ... and, having failed, sinks onto the polar ice, closes its eyes and prepares to starve to death.
Arbitrary condensations of much larger works run many risks, and that's the first problem plaguing this edit of Earth: It's relentlessly harsh and depressing. Stretched out across 11 episodes and literally scores of individual animal stories, when originally broadcast in 2006, the grimmer aspects of "Nature's design" were easier to endure, as they were bookended by numerous lighter, happier and more triumphant narratives.
Here, though — with a running time of only 96 minutes — it feels like one sad conclusion after another: a white wolf running down a young caribou; a cheetah doing the same with a gazelle; a baby elephant so weakened during a trek with its mother through the inhospitable Kalahari Desert, and so blinded by dust, that it literally walks into a tree stump it can't see; another elephant overwhelmed by a starving pride of lions; the aforementioned shark attack; and, as a finale, the gloomy demise of the hungry polar bear.
Parents intending to bring small children to this film should think long and hard before doing so. The "cuteness factor" of several other scenes — polar bear cubs, Mandarin duck chicks making their first attempt at flight — is seriously undercut by all this trauma. The elephant sequences, in particular, are very hard to watch.
• Buy Blu-Ray: 
). 
series: great car chases (take that, Fast & Furious), cleverly choreographed fight scenes, wonderfully hissable villains and plenty of chances for our action hero to deliver his frequently mordant wisecracks. 
something of a giggle 
, the first Crank earned its rep through the inventive handling of an audacious concept. Neveldine and Taylor also understood the importance of getting off the stage as quickly as possible; Crank clocked in at an economical 87 minutes, and at that had worn out its welcome by the third act. One can take only so much of a film 
to more cautionary dramas such as 
and 
. State of Play belongs with the latter.