The Worst Film Ever

That was an excellent one.

Fantastic!

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

ChimpanzeeThe wild can be a dangerous place for a chimpanzee. Mostly because tire swings in their natural form are attached to speeding vehicles.Fortunately, there are no SUVs for the primates in this documentary to be pinned under.When his mother is killed in a territorial skirmish with a rival tribe lead by the cruel Scar, a young chimp named Oscar must learn to survive on his own.Lonely and emaciated, Oscar struggles to retain the survival lessons that his mother instilled in him, but to no avail.Luckily, an unpredictable bachelor in the tribe does something completely unexpected and adopts the orphaned ape as his own.Narrated by Tim Allen, this Disney nature documentary features fantastic up-close footage of life amongst our relatives, paying particularly close attention to how their empathy apes our own.However, in cases like this, I always thought that guardianship went to the monkey's uncle. (Yellow Light)vidiotreviews.blogspot.ca

Today I saw the latest DisneyNature release, Chimpanzee. While I thought it would be a lot like every other G rated Disney nature film, I admit it - I liked it. Although, I wondered through the whole showing if this was a scripted movie. Stuff like this doesn't really happen in true-life nature, does it?? So I came home and Googled it. This IS a Disney/Jane Goodall Institute Documentary about the life of Oscar, a very young chimp in the African jungle. It took 4 years to film. And the incredible turns of events are all true. The film makers lucked out in coming across a story that is fairly rare. My biggest caution is that Disney put together this movie in such a way as to get you very attached to the chimps they filmed. In this way, Disney leaves behind the detachment that should be present whenever a documentary is produced.This movie was made with children in mind, however they didn't gloss over too much real life in the jungle sort of thing. They show chimps hunting (for monkey meat) and they show different chimpanzee "tribes" at war. There are also some mothers nursing. And in true Disney fashion, a parent dies. The thing that stings a bit is that it really happened, so, as always, take into consideration your child's personality if you take them to see it. Disney did a good job of letting us adults know what was happening without being too graphic. While there is hunting for meat, there is no blatant devouring or ripping and tearing of flesh. And when the parent dies they talk about it, but she isn't seen shortly after she is separated from her group. And in the end, it isn't totally a story about warring chimp tribes but rather a story about one chimpanzee going against his nature to care for a helpless, orphaned youngster. There were several pre-schoolers in the audience when I saw it and none of them had a problem that I was aware of.Tim Allen narrates this movie with the style and voice of a typical Disney movie. In fact, at the beginning I was wondering where they got that guy from the nature films I saw in 1970! The film makers got extremely lucky to have the honor of catching on film a rare story that gives us a glimpse into a world normally hidden by jungle trees. The photography is amazing (how did they possibly get that close to wild beings to get the shots they did??). I was glad, too, that Disney has made a nature movie with children in mind. I loved Disney Nature movies when I was a child and I am glad that my grandchildren can see them too.

Although I basically enjoyed this film for the most part, I had had enough after the first hour. I continued to the end but got fidgety and I fear most children will too. It is interesting and the cinematography is tremendous, just a little too slow. I was amazed to learn that chimps form packs and war with other packs; they are like us in the bad ways too, evidently. It would have been nice if there was an on screen notation that Tim Allen was the narrator as I did not know this ahead of time and kept trying to figure out who it was; his name did not appear till the very end of the credits - what's up with that? I cannot honestly recommend this film for any but die-hard animal lovers and not children under the age of 10 as it will just not hold their interest.

There still are people on this earth who care enough to work hard, live in unforgiving climates to tell an amazing story of survival, friendship and love. The story, photography, location, narrating and the chimps were the real star's, especially our little hero Oscar. We attended the a.m. showing of "chimpanzee" in Kanata AMC. I will promote this movie with the hope parents will take their children to understand the beauty,friendship and caring of the chimpanzee world. We would have liked additional footage shown at the end of the movie on how the set-up and filming took place. I can only imagine how horrible it was when Oscar's mom Izza was attacked and succumbed to death from a leopard. Would love to have been there to see Freddy accept little Oscar.Thank you for all the hard work and beautiful story. I will be attending again before April 26th to help the Jane Goodall Foundation. Cheers, Cher