MARCH OF THE PENGUINS

REVIEWED BY SHANNON H.

Our rating: 4 out of 5

Because of: thematic elements

Rated:

Penguins are interesting creatures. They are birds and have wings but cannot fly. They eat nothing but small fish that swim in the icy cold waters off of Antarctica. Penguins live and thrive in a vast, snowy wasteland that can drop to a nasty minus 100 degrees Fahrenheit, a climate uninhabitable for humans unless they layer up. A small team of French scientists decided to film the mating habits of the emperor penguin and produce the documentary into a feature film (the U.S. version of the movie is narrated by actor Morgan Freeman). According to animal biology, emperor penguins will march up to 70 miles to find a good breeding ground and try to raise a family in the middle of harsh winter storms that can easily kill any living thing.

According to the scientists, by instinct, these penguins will just group together, line up, and start marching toward their breeding ground where they will find a mate, breed, and raise a single baby chick while braving an extremely horrid winter. They will walk (or waddle) or slide on their bellies if they get tired of walking. This 70 mile trek can take a couple of months. The penguins try to find a spot where some of the icy mountaintops shield away some of the cold winds. Those who wait too long to make the trip will more than likely die while trying to keep up. The emperor penguins finally reach their mating grounds after weeks and weeks of waddling and sliding on their stomachs (they had to eat to increase their body weight for the 70 mile trip). Since the females outnumber the guys, there is almost always a "chick fight" over a somewhat lucky bachelor.  hen, everyone finally "hooks up" and they breed. The female lays her egg and since she is the one to feed the chick, she must travel BACK 70 miles to the spot where they began their journey. This means that the father must babysit the egg for another several weeks until the mother returns. He must balance the egg on the tips of his toes and cover it with his body to keep it warm. Any slight exposure to the egg will freeze it, killing the baby chick inside. There are a few instances where couples get too anxious and end up leaving the egg too long on the ice while transferring it from the mother to the father (at this point, the relationship ends because the whole point of breeding is to have offspring and raise them).

While the mother goes back to stuff herself full of fish, the dad is forced to brave several winter storms. There are shots of huge masses of male penguins huddling together to preserve body heat and to keep their eggs on their feet.  All while watching the egg, Dad starts to get hungry and his body weight decreases. When the egg hatches and the fuzzy little penguin chick emerges, the dad must keep it protected from the elements and any predatory birds in the area. He also must try to keep it alive by feeding it a milky substance from his body, even though he is weakened by hunger and fatigue. Time is running out for the male penguin to keep himself and his baby from dying in the freezing winter and the female must speed up her pace when she returns from her feeding.

The movie has no objectionable content, but there are a couple of shots of baby penguin chicks frozen solid on the icy ground. A bird swoops in and grabs a baby penguin from its family. There's a brief 1 to 2 second shot of penguins mating (not graphic).  A seal is seen with a female penguin in its jaws. The narrator states penguins have been around for thousands of years, which is untrue because, according to Creation science findings, the Earth is actually younger than we thought (unless "thousands of years" meant anywhere from 5,000 to 8,000 years before Christ). 

I liked this documentary. I did know that penguins did have to travel long distances to breed, but not 70 miles from their home. What I really enjoyed was the fact that these penguins traveled this journey back and forth, from their home to their breeding ground, for the prospect of finding a mate and raising a family.  he documentary states that the penguins did this out of love for their mate and for their new baby chick. I'm not sure if penguins could feel love or not but at least they are monogamous (they stay with one mate until their chick is old enough to be out on its own). The best part was the emergence of those cute, adorable baby penguins. They looked like stuffed animals and it just made my heart melt watching them squawk and tumble as they took their first step on the ice. My heart also sank when some of them could not pull through the nasty winter or when predators would get to them. The March of the Penguins is a delightful treat for animal lovers and those who like to watch baby animals interact with others.