March of the Penguins

[life_boy]

March of the Penguins[/u] (La Marche de l'empereur)
Official Site
Official Trailer

Emperor penguins overcome daunting obstacles in order to return to their breeding grounds for mating season. This tells the story of one year in the life of a flock -- focusing on one couple in particular -- as they trek across the Antarctic on an annual journey that invokes just about every major life experience: from birth to death, from dating to mating, from comedy to tragedy, and from love to fighting for survival.

Starring: Morgan Freeman (Narrator of U.S. Version)
Directed by: Luc Jacquet  
Produced by: Ilann Girard, Yves Darondeau, Christophe Lioud

Running Time: 84 min.
Release Date:  June 24th, 2005 (limited).
MPAA Rating:   G for General Audiences.
Distributor:   Warner Independent Pictures

[cine]

is there anything morgan freeman can't narrate?

[life_boy]

is there anything morgan freeman can't narrate?

La Marche de l'empereur

[cine]

i'm sure if they asked him to..

[hedwig]

yeah i like danny devito too

[abuck1220]

this was a pretty amazing tale. some great photography too.

the only thing that ate at me was the possibility that it was seriously edited to add effect. plus, it's pretty obvious that some of the penguin noises were 'dubbed', and that kinda takes me out of the documentary feel. nonetheless, a really good movie.

[RegularKarate]

almost all nature documentaries have serious post-sound.

I liked this film... it was interesting and visually, pretty nice (though some of the video scenes looked kinda wrong mixed in with the film).

The only thing that kept popping into my head was "why all the buzz?".. I remember not that long ago when you would see a beautifully shot nature doc where the participants risked life and limb to present to you an episode of National Geographic or Nature on PBS on Sunday morning.  This was released theatrically... I just found this strange.

This was only a little different than what I've seen before and I didn't really learn anything new about penguins.

[abuck1220]

i have no problem with the post sound...after all with the winds howling at 100 mph, you're not gonna get real good sound...it's just that at times i felt they went a little far with the dubbing. like making it sound like the penguins were crying or making a cute little inquisitive sound.

i agree that it's surprising that this got such a big release. but you must have known a lot about penguins going in, because i learned quite a bit.  

[life_boy]

The Indispensible Pubrick-esque Review™:
[Semi-Spoilers]

Worked
Opening Iceberg Shots/Music
The March
Extreme Long Shots
Penguin Sex Scene
Baby Penguins
Dead Baby Penguins
The poor bastard holding the camera the whole time

Failed
Being oldest person in theater not taking kids
"We don't know exactly why..."
DV Northern Lights
Narration

Winner
Warner Independent Marketing Campaign

[modage]

this trailer made me cry in theatres.

[GoneSavage]

Michael Bay weighs in on March of the Penguins.

[mutinyco]

Surprised I didn't post this...

[MattDead]

So, would someone give their recommendation to see this movie?

[life_boy]

The movie is okay.  There is some beautiful cinematography, but apart from that it really lacks imagination.  The more I think about it the more it kind of lessens in my memory (not that it's bad...it's just mediocre).  The best thing that it has done is made mainstream audiences a little more willing to see documentaries and has perhaps made distributors more willing to give documentaries wider distribution.  
But I don't want to see more films made like it.

If that helps.....

[GoneSavage]

I was sandwiched between grandmas and 8 kid families who were loud and obnoxious.  So if something like this comes out again, I will not see it in the theatre.  The only reason I saw it was I love animals and to see a nice National Geographic documentary on the big screen was an attractive idea to me.  Definitely not for most people, especially people of the xixax age group I'd say.  I liked it but it was nothing better than what you'd see on Discovery, if you have Discovery.