It was family movie night. Somehow, March of the Penguins ended up at my house. I don’t know how but it did. In a word, zzzzZZZZ. March of the Penguins is a National Geographic travelogue on par with Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom. Actually, Wild Kingdom had better scripting, March of the Penguins has better photography.
Morgan Freeman is the narrator. Nice voice. Personally, I think a gun was involved in getting Mr. Freeman to read this script. It was the most uninspired, sometimes melodramatic, largely boring verbiage I’ve heard on TV or film. The repetition of the words “empty belly,” full belly,” “70 mile trek,” and “literally starving” was pretty unbelievable. Someone needs to buy the script writer a thesaurus and maybe a dictionary. The script was redundant and boring.
The photography was awesome. Even more incredible was the fact that the crew had to winter over on the Antarctic continent in order to capture the movie. More interesting than the movie is the Extra Features item about the crew’s experience. The penguins came right up to the crew and their equipment, no fear whatsoever. That was pretty interesting.
The film would be a lot more enjoyable if you turn down the movie sound and make your own sound track. Think of it as National Geographic meets Fantasia.
Aloha