First Hit: Unfortunately some great shots don’t make up for an unrealistic full life view of these great cats.
Where were the female lions on the northern side of the river? Are they gone? Is this why the 4 mail lions came to the South side of the river?
The humanizing dialogue by Samuel L. Jackson would lead us to believe that these four males just wanted to conquer the pride on the south side. Where was the male Cheetah who impregnated the female who had 5 young babies? What is the family structure of Cheetahs? The hunt for food was very sanitized. Where was the biting and holding of the neck which Cheetahs use to kill their prey?
The fight of the female lions against the four invading males where was it? If creating and protecting life was the point, then where was the propagation? Although the some of the slow motion shots of cheetahs running were fantastic along with other beautifully choreographed shots of the land and animals, this film lacked a realistic full life-cycle of these magnificent African Cats.
Samuel L. Jackson’s voice was soothing and wonderful; too bad he didn’t have much film to work with to create some real magic. Alastair Fothergill and Keith Scholey directed this film and given the end product they either were told to sanitize it or take the life out of it by Disney. Or maybe the directors just didn’t know how vanilla this film comes across.
Overall: A boring Sunday evening big screen video with some 6 year olds.