What worked for penguins works almost as well for polar bears and walruses, as the new nature documentary “Arctic Tale” proves. This National Geographic production is thick with photography and heavy with an environmental message.
Like almost every nature film that’s come along since the beginning of movies, this one uses documentary footage to construct a storyline, complete with characters with cute names and intentional behavior.
This is sometimes grating, but directors Sarah Robertson and Adam Ravetch get wonderful, close-in footage to support their invented tale.
Two little heroes star: a female polar bear cub named Nanu, and a young female walrus called Seela. (This is a girl-power movie; the males are belligerent or unnecessary.) The bear cub gets the lion’s share of the attention, which isn’t surprising, given the automatic response of most people to cuddly bear cubs.
The walruses are much cooler, though. I don’t know if cameras have ever gotten this close to a lot of walruses, but their astonishing weirdness never gets old.
Just to remind us this is a kids’ movie, there’s a scene with a pack of gassy walruses that threatens to eclipse (or at least out-drone) the farting scene from “Blazing Saddles.”
The film includes other earthy aspects of nature, including death. The fact that animals eat other animals to survive is also here, a tricky game for filmmakers; why are we rooting for the polar bears, when the almost-as-cute seals are dinner?
Come to think of it, the seals are just as cute as the baby bear. Sorry, kids, nature’s like that.
Despite its manufactured drama, “Arctic Tale” is enjoyable enough, if shy of the strong focus of “March of the Penguins.” The narrator is none other than Queen Latifah, who speaks in her own particular style, using phrases no previous nature-doc narrator has ever attempted.
The shots of the walruses are fantastic, and ditto for the pod of narwhals (those smallish whales with unicornlike horns). Narwhals are awesome.
After some early references to global warming, “Arctic Tale” goes completely Al Gore in its final minutes, marching out a group of kids to testify on the subject. This is a blunder. Evidence of the vanishing ice is powerful, but being preached to is not.
A scene from “Arctic Tale.”
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