"ELEPHANT TALES"
DVD Review
by Kevin Carr
| MOVIE: **1/2 (out of 5 stars)
DVD EXPERIENCE: * (out of 5 stars) STARRING THE VOICES OF Jono Wood as ZEF Emily Hunt as TUTU Annie Linder as STRETCH Patrick Floersheim as CHUMP Michael Kumnick as CUB Len Firth as CHEETAH #1 Dorinda Hafner as CHEETAH #2 Rated G Studio: MGM Directed by: Mario Andreacchio Back to DVD Review Home |  |
Anyone who has young children knows that it’s a safe bet to show them a movie with animals. Kids love animals in almost any film. And when the film stars the animals themselves with the human beings taking a back seat in the story, it’s an added bonus.
“Elephant Tales” is a small release, featuring old school techniques of filming animals and laying voices over the soundtrack. There’s no fancy digital enhancements or anything like that. I grew up with this kind of film, so I wasn’t turned off by its low-tech nature.
The movie tells the story of two young elephants, Zef and Tutu, who lose their family in a poacher attack. The younger Tutu doesn’t understand that they’re gone forever, so his older brother Zef tries to keep his spirits up and find a new herd. They travel across the African landscape looking for more elephants, and along the way, they pick up several other misfit animals whose families were lost to poachers.
A bit of this film reminded me of the international critter film “Milo and Otis” a few years back. Like “Milo and Otis,” which was also very low tech, this movie featured the animal journey with an overall narration to tell the story. In “Elephant Tales,” it is two wise cheetahs that narrate the film.
As an adult, the talking animal thing can get a bit stale. There’s about forty minutes of story in this movie, with it stretched to 96 minutes by adding silly antics with the animals. However, this movie wasn’t made for adults. It’s a kid’s movie through and through. And while my young sons don’t have it on their list as the greatest film of the year, they did enjoy it quite a bit.
The nature photography is what I found most interesting. The movie was filmed entirely on location in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, using a local nature preserve. By watching this movie, I do realize that modestly-budgeted animal films aren’t very common.
It used to be that these movies could be found quite often on DVD shelves. Now, this seems to be reserved for the more nature documentary style of films like “The March of the Penguins.” “Elephant Tales” is not meant to be a nature film. It’s a cute story, one that you might see adapted from a picture book found in the local library. It utilizes nature rather than documents it.
The story is relatively simple, and the bad guys are the bumbling poachers. In reality, poaching is far more grisly than is portrayed here, and I doubt that a couple young elephants, a giraffe and a monkey would be able to prevail. However, this is definitely a kid’s movie, and it follows that formula perfectly.
Although it does run long, “Elephant Tales” is cute enough for a family movie night with the young kids in your clan.
