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’THE BROTHERS SOLOMON’ Page 18

“Arctic Tale” was pitched as this summer’s “March of the Penguins,” a Waddle of the Walruses. Because while it has polar bears, arctic foxes, the thick-billed murre, Ring seals and walruses, there isn’t a penguin to be found in the arctic.
It’s a cute children’s documentary about wildlife in the frozen north. This anthropomorphized National Geographic production features an almost-cloying narration and gives its subject animals names, just like the old Disney True Life Adventure films of the ’50s and ’60s. It has cute baby animals, walruses passing gas for laughs and is peppered with absurdly obvious pop tunes — “We are Family,” “Celebration.”
Apparently, Seal singing “I Am the Walrus” was out of the question.
But this children’s film has a very serious subtext. That adorable polar-bear cub, Nanu, and pudgy walrus pup, Sela, whom we meet and follow through the first few years of life? They’re goners if global warming isn’t stopped.
Sarah Robertson’s beautifully photographed film takes us under the sea as walruses dig for clams, under the ice where seals and murres swim away from hungry bears and into a snow cave where a mother polar bear gives birth to her cubs.
We follow a walrus who grows up in a world where melting ice fields force her herd to swim hundreds of miles to rocky islands rather than hang out on icebergs. We follow a bear following that herd as she struggles to catch seals or anything else to eat since her natural hunting ground, that same ice sheet, is gone earlier and earlier in the year.
This story, full of life and death, makes terrific infotainment for kids, who fill the closing credits with suggestions on stopping global warming.
“Take the bus … Plant a tree. Plant millions of trees.”
Queen Latifah puts a little street sass into the narration, with a “walruses up in everybody’s business” here or a who’s “large and in charge” crack there. Male walruses sing their mating call under the ice, and it takes a while for that message to sink in with the females.
“These ladies have better things to do with their time.”
That last bit is a somewhat annoying theme that runs through the piece. The male polar bears are either aggressive threats or first-to-die weaklings. The male walruses are fit to be ignored. Yes, baby walruses have two mommies (the movie calls this assistant caregiver an “auntie”), but selecting the animals to document and the stories told make this a documentary with what one hopes is an accidental, but definite, gender bias.
Then again, it was the male emperor penguins who were the hero-parents of “March of the Penguins,” wasn’t it?
None of that takes away from the stunning shots of nature, closely observed, or the overriding message of “Arctic Tale.” See this in a cool theater on a hot day. But these scenes of an icy kingdom most of us will never see don’t give us relief from the heat.
Scientists, and filmmakers like Robertson, are sending out a warning: That ice is going away.
If you go

What: “Arctic Tale”

Starring: The voice of Queen Latifah

Directed by: Sarah Robertson

Running time: 85 minutes

Rated: G