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83Positioned to be the environmental documentary of the year.
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75Make no mistake, Arctic Tale is a stunning film, full of all the astonishing, even breathtaking nature photography we've come to expect from the folks at National Geographic.
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75For all the impending doom, the film remains suitable for kids of all ages (the filmmakers even end on a happily reassuring note that is at odds with the film's overall message).
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75Whatever problems some might have with its execution, it's hard to argue against a film whose intent is to kindle youthful compassion for living things and inspire action to protect Earth and its creatures.
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75Arctic Tale has a very precise audience in mind: Young children who aren't yet ready for the graphs and sociopolitical alarm bells of "An Inconvenient Truth."
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75It's a playful study of Arctic life, starring a polar bear cub, its prey, and a tagalong fox -- with the inevitable dramatic moments when bear meets walrus.
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75It plucks ceaselessly at our heartstrings to play a sad song indeed.
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It's a respectable attempt to get kids who like cuddly animals thinking about death and destruction on a global scale.
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75For all the inevitable comparisons to March Of The Penguins, Arctic Tale isn't quite a nature documentary.
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75The best reason to see this documentary is for the stunning shots of polar bears and walruses in the Arctic Circle. If the filmmakers had just left it at that, they would have accomplished a lot.
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Spectacular photography of the frigid domain of polar bears, walruses and seals is the chief attraction of Arctic Tale.
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A smarmy score, some orgiastic farting from a herd of walruses, and a modicum of cutesy anthropomorphism from narrator Queen Latifah prove a small price to pay for this stunningly photographed narrative documentary about a year in the endangered life of Arctic ice floe.
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70Queen Latifah proves an amiably authoritative narrator, and is allowed more personality than most script readers.
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70As charming as it is instructive.
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67Sometimes a little too pat, a little too cute.
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63Watching bear cubs and walrus pups struggling to survive against increasingly tough odds, and on ever-slushier ice shelves, has both its shamelessly manipulative side and its dramatically necessary side, as handled here. This proves one thing: Unlike global warming, some stories really do have two sides.
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63The flat narration by Queen Latifah doesn't help, but Adam Ravetch and his wife Sarah Robertson's nature film, Arctic Tale, fails to inspire the kind of rapturous response we felt for "March of the Penguins" for other reasons.
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63The script, narrated by Queen Latifah, is so embarrassingly dorky (it was co-written by Kristin Gore) that it's like Fred Rogers gone hip-hop.
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63Icy landscapes, the cozy tones of Queen Latifah and a walrus-farting scene that rivals the campfire bean-fuelled explosions of "Blazing Saddles" help make Arctic Tale, a new wildlife documentary, a fun family indoor excursion.
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60The movie's stunning underwater photography (fearlessly captured by Mr. Ravetch) effectively dilutes the saccharine tone.
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The impact of Arctic Tale is blunted by its length (it feels long at 85 minutes) and by its script.
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50In the end, I'm conflicted about the film. As an accessible family film, it delivers the goods. But it lives in the shadow of "March of the Penguins." Despite its sad scenes, it sentimentalizes.
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Makes an unpersuasive case that humans are to blame for the shrinking ice caps.
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50The movie is edited and, worse, narrated in ways that sabotage the magic and even undercut the movie's message.
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50Reinforcing the adage that looks aren't everything, the live-action animal drama Arctic Tale arrives in an impressive visual package and even boasts a timely message, but its undistinguished storytelling is a big letdown.
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50Watching these endangered species evolve new approaches to hunting and shelter is fascinating, but the movie is seriously marred by a cloying screenplay and such kid-pleasing touches as shots of walruses belching and farting.
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 3 out of 4
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Mixed: 0 out of 4
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Negative: 1 out of 4
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IRP10There's a miracle in this wildlife drama, and it is implied on the whole story of the bear and the seal's fight for survival. Amazing!
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JoeB7
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tomJ0Makes an unpersuasive case that humans are to blame for the shrinking ice caps.