This movie, narrated by Queen Latifah, follows two young animals as they grow up in a changing world. The first is Nanu, a polar bear cub who has a brother and a mother. We follow her journey over the course of eight or so years as she is trained by her mother and eventually has to strike out on her own. Interlaced with Nanu's story is that of a walrus pup named Seela. Seela must also undergo training if she is to survive, this time by her mother and aunt. An interesting fact that this movie informed me of was the low birth rate of walruses and because of that, each walrus cub gets highly protected and typically has two mothers... well, a mother and an aunt.
As both babies get older, not only do they learn to fend for themselves and have to deal with seals, narwhales and male polar bears, but there are also environmental changes that keep messing up these species' internal clocks. Each year, the ice takes a little longer to become strong enough for the bears to cross, and each year the climate of the areas where Seela and her family live changes slightly. While March of the Penguins became mainstream because people made implied global warming connections, Arctic Tale doesn't do that much implying and comes right out and gives you ways to help these northern creatures by doing things like taking two-minutes less in the shower, or driving hybrids.
I have to wonder, though, about this movie's need to be in high definition. While it contains many wonderful snowscapes and gorgeous deep blue arctic waters, there seems to be a lot of grain and speckle to the movie. While it isn't as much as an older film converted to HD, it is noticeable and I couldn't help but focus on the grains more than the actual movie when they were most apparent.
Arctic Tale is just a good documentary that really goes in depth and conveys a lot of information. It also has a very obvious anti-global warming message that at times felt like a hammer over the head, but is definitely something that kids should see, especially if they've already seen March of the Penguins.
