Earth (2009)

You won't be disappointed!

Best movie of this year hands down!

As Good As It Gets

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

This film is a companion to the BBC TV series Planet Earth. This starts with the polar bears in the North. Spring approaches and the movie moves south with life returning. As the seasons advance, the movie goes further south.Like its TV companion Planet Earth, the cinematography is magnificent. The wildlife and the epic landscape have to be seen. It cannot be described in words. The blue water is so blue. The green leaves are so green. The battle for life is more intense than any work of fiction. The chases are more thrilling than most CGI car chases. Some of my earliest movie memories are National Geographic nature films and I hope some youngsters will have this movie in their memory banks.

Earth (2007): Dir: Alastair Fothergill, Mark Linfield / Narrator: James Earl Jones: Extraordinary documentary about the function of life. Filmmakers Alastair Fothergill and Mark Linfield create not only one of the best films of the year, but they also re-introduce documentaries to movie goers. They begin in the cold Arctic as a mother polar bear and her two cups search for food. The male polar bear is also searching for food but having much more difficulty. There is a great scene where the male comes across a herd of walruses and desperate, he attempts to take one down but fails. From there it hits the rain forests as hatchlings emerge for their first flight. Then in hot Africa a herd of elephants travel in search of water. There is a great confrontation sequence where elephants face off against lions for the water hole. While elephants certainly dominate by size, lions wait patiently because by night, their sight is much better. Then ocean footage oversees the migration of humpback whales as they travel the long haul from one destination to another. James Earl Jones provides the deep voice narration as these stories unfold. For those who enjoy hours of Animal Planet and enjoy wildlife programs, then this will suffice them. Beautifully shot with intriguing insight upon how the planet operates as well as a wonderful message regarding wildlife and the struggle for survival. Score: 10 / 10

This movie is fun to watch, though one starts to feel kind of voyeuristic soon, watching so many "intimate" moments between animals. I put 'intimate' in quotations, because the script given to James Earl Jones is full of human projections upon the animals with more or less success; at times the captions are far-fetched and detract from the movie; other times, they are hilarious (like with monkeys avoiding getting their hands wet). Hands down, the funniest animal is the bird doing the jumpy wide-wings mating ritual; we couldn't stop laughing.This movie is incredibly sad and in a very un-Disney-like way, leaves a lot of loose ends. I suppose this is the Realism of Nature, yet, the storyboard in the captions makes it nearly traumatic as a viewer (like the baby elephant going the wrong way and the daddy polar bear who dies because of global warming making the ice thin...the same point and animal in CGI in Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth). I guess I am very appreciative of the camera-work capturing such beauty, but for strictly an artistic experience, the captions should be dropped and viewers should make their own interpretations (which happens anyway!)

First of all, the release date is 2009, not 2007 for this feature length nature documentary film. It should be more properly referred to as: "Earth, 2009". Secondly, allow me to address the complaints of some reviewers who have seen the "Planet Earth" TV series of 2006. I have not seen this TV series, but learned here, that this film is the full length version of this 2006 TV series. I judge any film, on it's own merits, not by it's source. I judge the results, on their own, and the results of "Earth, 2009" are indeed excellent. I dismiss this trivial complaint of some reviewers: that it's simply an expanded version of the 2006 TV series "Planet Earth". So what? It doesn't really matter.As a film buff and one who has viewed dozens of nature documentaries in my lifetime, I was astonished and highly impressed by "Earth, 2009". This is the debut film from the new "DisneyNature" division of Disney and follows in the footsteps of Walt Disney's pioneering and Academy Award winning nature documentary films of the 1950's and 1960's.Cinematography, film editing, music score, sound and narration are all excellent. There have been a few other nature documentaries that also excelled in these categories. What really sets "Earth, 2009" apart is its' scope. It literally covers the entire planet, covering all seven continents.After my first viewing, it was obvious this documentary film required a massive effort and amount of time and talent to create. Three production companies were required to make this amazing documentary film."Earth, 2009" convincingly tells the stories of four species on their great migrations as it spans one year through the seasons beginning in January and ending in December, from the North Pole to the South Pole.Two special new high-tech cameras were used for this film: one camera has a 360 degree computer controlled motorized rotating lens and the other is a HD camera set to an amazing 1,000 frames per second. This filming technique really added drama and beauty to some of the scenes of "Earth, 2009" especially the cheetah chase and great white sharks leaping out of the water to catch sea lions and an aerial view going over the edge of the world's highest waterfall. There are many stunningly beautiful shots in this documentary.Via cinematography, music score and narration, there is drama, sadness, humor and great beauty in this documentary. With a great music score performed by the world renowned Berliner Philharmoniker, excellent creative and technical cinematography and James Earl Jones narration, I consider "Earth, 2009" as the greatest nature feature length documentary film ever made.Five years of hard work, patience, talent and dedication really paid off very well here. This film should be required viewing in all schools throughout the world. I predict an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, among other awards. Truly, an amazing, astonishing, exhilarating and magnificent documentary film.Very Highly Recommended