http://www.worldofkj.com/Arsalan/MotP.php

Just came back. What a touching story; brilliantly shot. My first straight A of the year.

Here's a copy of my review from the Foreign & Independent & Documentary sub-forum:

I finally got a chance to see this today and I definitely did not walk away disappointed (despite having to sit in the second row from the front). Very emotional, sweet, touching film with beautiful cinematography of Antarctica. Quite an educational and interesting film as well as we learn about the life of Emperor Penguins and all the struggles and hardships they have to go through to reach their breeding grounds. The baby chicks in the film are ADORABLE! There's some scenes that are quite sad in the film though I won't spoil them for you. Morgan Freeman narrates brilliantly- seriously he could narrate a film about the history of zippers and I'll be there opening day. I definitely recommend this film to all my fellow KJ'ers (unless you have a short attention span like my sister- though I love her- and my Dad).

A-/B+

March of the Penguins is nicely filmed, and Morgan Freeman does a great job with the narrative, as always, but it just didn't hit me like I was hoping. There were too many lulls in between narration (no fault of Freeman's), and I guess the subject matter of penguins can only be so interesting.

I wasn't fascinated with the presentation of these birds, although they did a good job giving details of the penguin life, and I just didn't feel the emotional attachments they were trying to convey with the chicks and their mothers and fathers once the eggs hatched. When that one mother penguin got killed by the seal, I felt it could have been more tragic, but they moved on with only a brief mention of the consequences. It probably was just not for me more than it being an avreage documentary, but I enjoyed the ones I used to watch that Disney presented much more than this. I would care to watch it again.

C+

It is hard to make an A in my books,, but this ones takes the cake

A-

You've seen the movie - now Buy Your Very Own Penguin!

Hahaha

A great film for those who enjoy Animal Planet or The Discovery Channel, and while the mood strikes every so often where I feel like watching something of that nature, I guess I wasn't quite in the mood for March of the Penguins. So, I'll try to remain completely optimistic of this film, and see it for what it is.

The film is a beautiful tale about penguins of Antartica, and the story is helped greatly by the voice of Morgan Freeman, who can capture everything in the story as it happens. His voice alone helps the film, and I was grateful to hear it throughout the duration of the movie.

The story itself of the continuing cycle of the penguins didn't quite capture me like I had hoped, but I still don't blame that on the film itself, and instead blame it entirely on my mood at the time. Perhaps future viewings will help me watch this and enjoy it more, but for now, I felt there were many times where I felt bored and uninterested. But, for most of the movie, I still find myself amused by the penguins antics, or perhaps I find myself scared by their own fears. Sometimes, I feel a tear slip down my cheek, as I experience their pain and anguish. And when all goes well, in my heart I am applauding the penguins and rooting for them.

I guess I have no choice but to give this a good grade, because after all, even when I wasn't in the mood for a documentary on penguins, I still enjoyed it greatly.

Grade: B+

It is hard to write anything negative about this movie, with so much love for it out there. I wrote about my personal dissatisfaction with the human emotions portrayed in the penguins over in the Foreign & Independent sub-forum and about 10 people jumped on top of me and tried to give me a beating...

Damn those penguinists. They're a fierce and whiny bunch.

I don't know, I'm moving towards downgrading the movie a bit. There's enough justification in my lack of interest to lower the grade I gave the movie. Then again, I'm not getting paid to grade movies, so it shouldn't matter entirely.

I couldn't get into it, unfortunately. It's a beautifully shot film, and the narration is great, but I'll be honest... I was bored. I didn't expect to like it a whole lot, though, since I'm not into channels like Animal Planet, but for what its worth, it's a great looking film. C+

Same here. I felt compelled to love this film, so I gave it a B+ at the time, but it's more B/B- territory now that I think about it. It just wasn't as great as I thought.

BJs Grade:

B/B-

I love penguins they are one of my favorit tipes of bird, but this film was overall pretty boring, if it were not about penguins the grade would most likely be lower.

I agree with the general sentiment here. It looks great, the narration is way over-sentimental (I swear Morgan Freeman would say something like "the penguin is devastated" and then they'd show the penguin with the same expression on its face from 5 minutes ago), and there's a lot of yawn-inducing spots. You can only watch penguins walking around, huddling together, and the like for so long before it gets old. Why this movie did so well is beyond me, if anything though it's a godsend for parents as it's sure to put the kids to sleep and it's lacking any irritating songs/voices and instead just has the calming voice of Morgan Freeman along with a few intermittent penguin squawks. Despite the flaws there's a lot of interesting things going on here, what with the newborn penguins, the mating and the beautiful underwater scenes but you have to wonder why they decided to show this part of the penguins' life, and not more of the developmental stages. Seeing them grow from a curious, playful chick to a world-weary, marching adult would have been more interesting I think. I have a lot of affection for the film, but just not enough to say it's worth spending any money on. Definitely worth a look if it pops up on cable TV though. grade - C+.

Devastated Penguin:



Ecstatic Penguin:

beautiful film.... just beautiful!

A

B


The movie contains some of the most magical and beautiful scenes of all films last year, in particzlar the "love dance" of the penguin couple. The cinematography is also among the best I've seen last year. There are so many memorable and breathtaking shots. The big problem has been mentioned above more or less: the movie just gets way too repetitive as it goes on.

B

Although the movie is beautifully shot, it lacks something for me that makes it a great movie. I guess I would agree with what others have been saying...that is gets repetitive.