by Al Kessel
"Disney's latest Nature installment, Born In China, transports audiences to some of the world's most extreme environments of China, where few people have ever ventured, to witness wildly intimate and adorable moments in the lives of three animal families - a doting Giant Panda bear mother, a two year old snub-nosed monkey, and a mother snow leopard."
We recently had the pleasure of being asked to review this latest title in the Disneynature film series, and yes, this was one that we were REALLY hoping to review! When we first saw the previews a couple of years ago, we new that this was going to be one that really put the awwwww, in awesome Disney feature. And we weren't wrong.
Born In China follows three families of animals found in the most remote, and breathtakingly beautiful, locales in China, and in true Disney fashion, cute, and at times heartbreaking, stories are built around them. The majestic snow leopard and her two cubs from THE most inhospitable mountains in China; an incredibly cute snub-nosed monkey family with a rather mischievous two year old male (who seems to excel at getting into trouble) from the lowland jungle, and an impossibly cute Giant Panda mother and her uber-impossibly cute cub from a mountainous jungle area that took the crew months to capture on film. Awww, Giant Panda's are SOOOOOOO CUTE!!! But has anyone ever heard of a regular sized Panda??? Why only GIANT Pandas???? Anyway...
Of course, we're not going to spoil anything here by telling you about the movie (cuz...that's how we roll), but we WILL say that out of all the Disneynature movies, this is probably our second or third favorite. Disney does such a wonderful job at capturing such lovely moments on film, then creating heartwarming stories around them that it is often easy to forget that these are in essence, wild and dangerous animals. But the point is that they present these animals in such a way that people WANT to help preserve them.
As always, the stories built around the animals are funny, touching and at times, sad. And truth be told, I'm not sure you'd want the very young in your family to watch some of this, but even the sad scenes are designed with a purpose. To show us the REAL in reality. Life isn't always easy. But the funny and cute scenes....well, THOSE are laugh out loud fun times! (Yeah I know. I'm being pretty vague here...but again, that's how we roll!). Suffice it to say that Born In China is as fun as it is educational.
Narrated by John Krasinski (from The Office), I will admit that at first I didn't think he could do justice to a film of this nature (get it??? A pun!). But his timing is actually very good and his voice lends a great deal of passion to the subject. Telling the stories of how animals live, die, grow apart and then come together again, Krasinski does a wonderful job of presenting the stories of these three cute and cuddly families.
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| John Krasinski |
All in all, we love the Disneynature film series, and Born In China is no exception. We highly recommend this one to everyone (and maybe EVEN the littlest ones - as long as you prepare them first!)
Disneynature Born In China is now available on Blue Ray, DVD and Digital HD.
