Movie Review: March of the Penguins

This film has absolutely gorgeous scenery of Antartica and amazing shots of Emperor Penguins. It's also further proof that Morgan Freeman is the best narrator alive. The penguins' breeding habits are just amazing. They travel over ice to their place of birth, mate, and wait for the egg to be laid. The females leave to get food which can take 2 months, while the males cover the eggs with their bellies and wait for them to hatch and females to return to feed the chicks. All this waiting takes place though winter with temperatures of -80°F and 100 mph winds. The penguins can go for months without food and then have to trek 70 miles to get some. It's a great story.

That said I had some complaints. The print I saw seemed a little grainy, it could just be I'm getting used to HDTV but I wanted it crisper. Since it was just penguins in the snow and ice there was no sense of scale. You don't know from watching this film that Emperor Penguins are about 4 feet tall, and in some long shots it's hard to tell them from rocks. And forget about telling males and females apart, they are identical. That's not the film maker's fault but I found myself wishing for VH-1 style popups to tell the players apart.

A note for parents, while the film does deal with death it's usually hidden from view and described as going to sleep and fading away, there is one particular shot of a dead baby penguin which they linger on and is quite sad. It's shown for a reason but it might not be for small children (though there were plenty in the matinee I saw). Also this film does show seals as the murderous sharp toothed killers they are (though it's all shown in the trailer so you can see for yourself before going to the film).

I'm not sure why but throughout this film I kept wondering how different it would be with a different narrator, say Chris Rock. There would be many more four letter words, the mating would be described as a giant outdoor orgy, the penguins would walk around asking each other if they're male or female. The young would survive by hiding under their dad's beer bellies, and the adults would be described as so lazy that instead of walking they sometimes slide on their bellies. You'd hear a lot about how they grow up with abandonment issues. Maybe this will be the incentive I need to go play with iMovie.