Chimpanzee

A documentary following the remarkable story of a young orphaned chimp and his community.

So I kind of have a complaint when it comes to Disney Nature.  Chimpanzee, like its predecessors, is overly fraught with human emotion. This comes from the over use of narration. I get that perhaps they feel this is necessary in order to appeal to children and keep them entertained, but they are wrong.  I grew up watching nature programs, ones that had very limited narration and also didn't edit out the natural drama that comes from the wild.

The footage that they had for this movie is amazing.  The story of this little three year old chimpanzee that is orphaned and then cared for by the alpha-male is unheard of.  In fact scientists say that it is common for males to kill orphaned young, not to play nurse maid.

The story is sweet and cute, the nature part is however, I hate to say it -- "disneyfied", thus taking something away from the actual spectacle.

Nevertheless I took a six and four year old to it, and they were entertained. The four year old lost interest about an hour in, and again I attribute that to too much narration and not enough nature.

** 1/2 -- Its fun to see on the big screen


Rated G