Arctic Tale
by Adam Ravetch, Sarah Robertson
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DVD details
Actor: Katrina Agate, Kwesi Boakye, Preston Bailey, Queen Latifah, Zain AliDirector: Adam Ravetch, Sarah Robertson
Brand: LATIFAH,QUEEN
Producer: Adam Leipzig
Producer: Chris Miller
Producer: John Bard Manulis
Writer: Kristin Gore
Writer: Linda Woolverton
Writer: Mose Richards
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; French (Original Language); Spanish (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); French (Dubbed); Spanish (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 96 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-12-04
Audience Rating: G (General Audience)
Studio: Paramount
DVD Reviews of Arctic Tale
DVD Review: Collectible and touching
Summary: 5 Stars
If you got an old HD-DVD player, this is one DVD you have to have in your collection. The Planet Earth HD-DVD is also a must.DVD Review: Very good
Summary: 4 Stars
Great visuals are the biggest thing this film has going for it. Queen Latifa does a good enough job as the narrator, but nothing great. It is a fun tale with some neat facts and some "characters" that you can get attached to - I like the fox the most. It was a great purchase for the sale price, but I wouldn't spend too terribly much on this documentary. Overall, entertaining and great to look at. High definition is at its best during nature and sports programming.DVD Review: Artic Tale
Summary: 5 Stars
Quality and service was much more than I had expected. This was a great nature movie and I am very pleased that I ordered it.
I've watched this movie several times and have shared it with family and friends. Wonderful photography, great naration, sad in parts and funny in others. A real eye opener as to what we are all doing to our future Earth. Highly recommend this movie to all.
DVD Review: stunning visuals overcome schmaltzy treatment
Summary: 3 Stars
"Arctic Tale" is a National Geographic nature documentary blown up to widescreen proportions. Exquisitely photographed by Adam Ravetch (who, along with Sarah Roberston, also served as co-director of the film), the movie follows the exploits of an adorable polar bear cub named Nanu and an equally irresistible baby walrus named Celia as they learn to cope and survive (with more than a little help from their mommies) in the harsh conditions of the Great White North.
Weaknesses first. "Arctic Tale" suffers from a failing common to many nature documentaries aimed at a general audience - namely the tendency to sanitize and whitewash some of the harsher realities of life in the wild to avoid offending the sensibilities of an often squeamish audience. We don't mind oohing and ahhing over a cuddly little bear, all bleary-eyed and squinty, finally emerging from the dark den of her childhood to the bright light of day - but being compelled to watch her tear some other poor defenseless creature to pieces in order to perpetuate her own survival would be something else again. Similarly, it's one thing to anthropomorphize an animal; it's quite another to do so on the level of a Disney cartoon (the animals here do just about everything but talk). Thus, not only do we get cutesy, folksy narration (voiced by Queen Latifah) that sounds as if it were written for an audience of restless first-graders (which it may very well have been) but a sappy theme song that sets a schmaltzy tone from the outset. The movie also goes in for such corny effects as playing "We Are Family" on the soundtrack as we're introduced to a tight knit community of sunbathing walruses - or treating us to a full-out flatulence contest among the members of that same group. For some reason, the movie seems to feel that we just wouldn't be all that interested in the lives of these creatures if we weren't somehow convinced that, underneath it all, they're JUST LIKE US.
Not that we aren't treated to the darker, kill-or-be-killed, survival-of-the-fittest side of nature as well, though rest assured the "kills" are kept at a discreet enough distance to avoid traumatizing the little ones - or even the more weak-stomached and fainthearted members of the adult audience, for that matter.
On the positive side, the movie makes a poignant case for the tremendous threat global warming poses to these wonderful creatures and offers proof positive as to just how quickly the rapidly-changing climate is shattering the fragile ecosystem that serves as their home. Ravetch manages to get his camera into amazing places, so much so that we often wonder just how genuine some of the "story" we are witnessing actually is (the movie was culled from over 800 hours of footage gathered over a period of fifteen years, not the mere twelve-month-long period the plotline would suggest).
Yet, if you can get past the pedestrian commentary, you'll find in "Arctic Tale" a visually stunning, frequently thrilling and occasionally heartbreaking story of struggle and survival, one filled with enough urgency and passion to get us up and over most of the teeth-gritting stuff.
DVD Review: Saddening and cruel
Summary: 1 Stars
I do not in any way whatsoever subscribe to the filming of young bear cubs dying when the producers and film crew could have done something about it,and please dont give me that "well we cant interfere with nature" crap because just by doing what you're doing you already are.
Description of Arctic Tale
Set in the vast snow kingdom at the top of the world, Arctic Tale is a real life adventure from the people who brought you March Of The Penguins. Join narrator Queen Latifah as she follows two very different arctic creatures, Nanu, the polar bear cub and Seela, the walrus pup, through exciting and harrowing struggles for survival. Armed only with their natural instincts and mothers' guidance, these inspiring animals face countless trials and challenges in a beautiful icebound world that is rapidly melting beneath them.The frozen Arctic is home to polar bears and walruses, two very different types of animals whose struggle to survive against the elements is only being made more difficult by a changing climate. Directors Adam Ravetech and Sarah Robertson filmed walruses and polar bears in the Arctic for 15 years in order to create this amazing story about the lives of Nanu the baby polar bear and a newborn walrus dubbed Seelah. Striking footage from land and sea is combined with effective narration by Queen Latifa and pop music by Joby Talbot to chronicle these creatures' lives from the babies' first days of existence, through two years of training in hunting and fighting by their respective mothers and the changes in the icy world that are necessitating new adaptations by these animals, and a contemplation of the chances of both species' continued survival. Like March of the Penguins, the footage of the animals of the Arctic and the formation and breaking up of the ice is exquisite, but perhaps even more striking is the clear evidence of climate change in the delayed formation of the ice in the autumn and its progressively earlier thawing and breaking up each spring. The polar bears' and walruses' resilience and instinctual ability to adapt and change in the face of the negative effects of global warming in order to survive is stressed, and viewers are left pondering why man cannot similarly adapt and change his ways in order to positively affect the world. Bonus features include an interesting "making of" featurette with Adam Ravetech and Sarah Robertson that describes their travels, trials, and enormous gratitude for the assistance of the Intuit people and a fun Are We There Yet? World Adventure: Polar Bear Spotting mini-adventure for kids in which Molly and Sam go looking for polar bears in a tundra buggy. (Ages 5 and older) --Tami Horiuchi
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