The DisneyNature brand got off to a rough start with Earth, the unfortunate “film” edit of BBC’s inimitable and breathtaking Planet Earth. The full BBC series spanned over nine hours and covered its subject so thoroughly that when Earth came along, with James Earl Jones on narration duty, it felt like an abridged scatterbrained copy more concerned with flash than the substance that made the TV series so great. In the follow-up features since, The Crimson Wing and Oceans, DisneyNature has been fine-tuning their format and approach and it’s clear they’ve finally gotten it down to a brilliant blend of education and entertainment. African Cats captures the splendor of its cheetah and lion protagonists while boasting brilliant HD that has to be seen to be believed, all with Samuel L. Jackson offering color commentary. DisneyNature found the magic formula, and to prove it, they’ve let the cats out of the bag, or something less punny.
African Cats splits its time between the stories of Sita, a cheetah mother raising five cubs, and Mara, a lioness whose family ties become torn between two rival sets of male lions. As a single cheetah mother of five cubs, Sita has lots of factors going against her. For one, she has to worry constantly about finding food for her family lest the children die of starvation, and even if she chases down a gazelle and can provide that food, there’s an even bigger threat lurking: every other predator in Kenya’s Masai Mara National Reserve. Hyenas, lions, crocodiles, hippos, and even vultures pose a threat to her young cubs, and if Sita ever wants to see them become adults, she’ll have to use every trick she knows to ward off danger. Mara, however, has the opposite problem: she has a very big family, but one that shifts in loyalties constantly. The alpha male Fang, with whom she grew up, is usurped by another lion and his four sons who constitute a predatory force nothing in the reserve can stand against. Just when Mara has found her place in the pride, she’s chased out during the power shift and must wait for her moment to get back in.
The story, as narrated by Jackson, can be a bit cloying and overdramatic at times, but there’s no denying that the two stories intertwined make for enrapturing entertainment. Watching Sita stare down hyenas or a lion hold his ground with a crocodile is simply spectacular. Every piece of prey chased down by the majestic propulsion of the cheetah’s powerful hind legs plays out like the best slow-motion sports replay you’ve ever seen, and each time it just blows your mind that animals as incredible as these live halfway around the world. Where the story stumbles slightly is in its insistence at ratcheting up the tension at moments when anyone who knows anything about lions and cheetahs knows that nothing will happen. For example, at one point Sita faces off with the lions and his four sons, and while that is tense, that Sita was never at risk of being caught by the much slower and lazier lions makes the music feel like a cheap device and not a badly needed accent. Similarly, the script Jackson reads from tends to embellish things a bit for theatricality’s sake and it doesn’t help the feature at all. However, considering it’s Jackson doing the talking, it’s always kind of amusing.
Everything above is important when considering whether or not you want to watch African Cats, but none of it should hold as much weight as the absolutely superb quality of the high-resolution video. The detail shown in the footage will stun even the most avid Blu-ray denier. When you can see the tastebuds on a lions tongue, you know the HD is beyond reproach. There is so much beautiful cinematography here and impossibly fantastic shots (like a lone cheetah on a plane with a single tree just as lightning flashes in the background) that you have to think that a director with a huge special effects budget couldn’t have arranged for more picture-perfect moments even if he had the option to create them with CGI. It’s just that beautiful.
As of right now, this is all the validation the DisneyNature brand needs. Anything more will just be icing on the cake.
Blu-ray Bonus Features
The set comes as a combo pack with the film on both Blu-ray and DVD. For Blu-ray exclusive extras, you get an interactive commentary feature that lets you see the filming process at key moments and Jordin Sparks’s music video for “The World I Knew”. Guess which one of those you should be most excited about. The Blu-ray and DVD version share extras which essentially play out like corporate propaganda video espousing Disney’s commitment to nature appreciation and conservation. It’s more to Disney’s benefit than your own if you watch them.
"African Cats" is on sale October 4, 2011 and is rated G. Documentary. Directed by Alastair Fothergill, Keith Scholey. Written by Keith Scholey, John Truby. Starring Samuel L Jackson.
