Better Late Then Never

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

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

This five part documentary series shows us how the monsoon weather system affects a swathe of countries from India all the way to Australia. It explains how the monsoon isn't just the heavy rains but the whole weather cycle, which includes periods of severe drought. We are shown how this impacts the lives of both the local populations and the varied wildlife of the area. This wildlife includes familiar creatures like Asian Elephants and Orangutans that have featured in numerous nature documentaries as well as showing us less well known creatures like a giant leach that preys on equally giant worms in Borneo and a species of from that signals with its large feet. I really enjoyed this series; each episode showed me things that I didn't know about the way the weather effects an interesting part of the world. The makers visited a wide variety of counties, as well as several islands with unique animals. Narrator Colin Salmon does a fine job delivering his lines in a manner that keeps things interesting without ever sounding overly emotional as some narrators can at times. Each episode also included a final section about the making of the most challenging part of the episode; these are interesting snippets that give us an insight into the making of the episode... I suspect these sections may be lost if the series is shown on channels that include adverts. Overall a really interesting documentary about how the monsoons effect so many lives; both human and animal.