A Disappointing Continuation

It is not only a funny movie, but it allows a great amount of joy for anyone who watches it.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

"To the Arctic 3D" is an IMAX 40-minute nature documentary from 3 years ago. 2-time Oscar nominee MacGillivray and Stephen Judson worked on many of these, so lack of experience certainly is not an issue here. same goes for narrator Meryl Streep. I think she mostly does a fine job. It's not great, but I liked how clear she spoke that even non-native English speakers like myself have no problem understanding the contents. I did not like the male narrator though. No idea why they had to include a second voice. In terms of the contents, it's not bad, but could have been better. Sometimes it felt artificially dramatic and there is one part with really bad music in the last third of the film that would have fit an animated movie for little children. No idea what they were thinking there. However, what we see is nice. The arctic is as beautiful to look at like the polar bears and the other animals in here. Some of the information are fine and new, but in terms of telling us something new this film also comes short. It partly makes up for that in terms of the emotion and display of maternal love we have here. All in all, a decent watch that still misses out on greatness though.

Here are 3 things that lost this exceptionally well-photographed, IMAX presentation some very serious points.(1) It contained some really pathetic, "grate-on-your-nerves" songs from 71-year-old, pop icon (and former-Beatle), Paul McCartney.(2) Its phone-in narration (which was absolutely "dry-as-a-bone") was lifelessly delivered by veteran actress, Meryl Streep.(3) This "message" documentary also got a bit out of hand when it came to driving home the point that it was, indeed, all man's fault for being the one who was creating all of the greenhouse gases that were causing global warming to accelerate (which, in turn, was destroying the arctic environment for polar bears and other such cold-climate wildlife).But, on the other hand - There certainly was some very outstanding camera-work done in this documentary whose story traced the journey of a mother polar bear and her two, 7-month-old cubs as they bravely navigated their way across the ever-changing arctic wilderness.

This IMAX film doesn't conceal the fact that it is a plea for reducing greenhouse gases to slow down the melt of the polar ice caps. Because, if the rate of warming keeps accelerating the polar ice will disappear completely every summer, and according to the writer of the script, Polar Bears will die out. Because they cannot live anywhere else.In keeping with this theme a good portion of the 40-minute running time focuses on a mother bear and her two 7-mo-old cubs. As the filmmakers make clear in the DVD extra, it was mostly good fortune, they happened upon this family of three that were not at all spooked by their boat. In fact at times they would come up to the boat and inquire. So they were able to study and film them for quite some time. Including an episode where, after mother bear killed a seal and the three of them feasted a big hungry male, twice the size of mother bear, set his sights on her cubs. But she was able to scare him off.The film also spent some time on the migrating Caribou and a newlywed couple who were tracking them. Also a brief comment about the underwater sea life being affected by the increasing acidity of the ocean.The film was narrated by Meryl Streep. I saw it on DVD and while not as spectacular as 3D in an IMAX theater, it indeed is a very good-looking film. But rather limited in its scope.

The flick begins by mentioning that polar bears resulted from brown bears (grizzly bears) migrating to the Arctic and adapting to that environment, a theory that comports with accepted thinking. Unfortunately, the idea that polar bears might migrate south and re-adapt to a different climate totally escapes the biased story-line developer. Never have I heard such misguided and erroneous information about anthropogenic global warming and the plight of a subspecies. That said, the photography was exceptionally good in part. While providing a glimpse into the life of polar bears, the focus on their supposed plight became tedious and boring. Minor and limited photography of other wildlife and sea creatures was of interest if you can forget the overall bias. I have to wonder how the story-line might be altered if presented from the point of view of the seal - a primary source of food for the bear as presented by the flick. I also continue to ask myself the question, "Does Ms. Streep have the slightest clue why Greenland is so named when 80% is covered in ice today?". I certainly enjoyed much of the photography, though the film dragged at times and the bias caused attention to drag.