National Geographic Antarctic Wildlife Adventure
K. Freeman | Apple Valley, CA USA | 05/12/2006
(2 out of 5 stars)
"Beautiful shots of Antarctic scenery don't save this information-free documentary -- after all, tons of films on Antarctica show beautiful scenes.
The film is basically about a family, complete with three children, who sail around the Antarctic peninsula to survey birds and perform other studies. Viewers learn almost nothing about the wildlife or the ecology being studied. As an example, most of the birds and sea mammals appearing on the screen are never identified by the narrator, and at one point cormorants are implicitly misidentified as penguins. The existence of this naturalist family is treated as a gimmick, apparently being supposed to engage interest on its own. For me, anyway, it doesn't."