Blu-Ray Review: earth

earth
Directed by: Alastair Fothergill and Mark Linfield
Narrated by James Earl Jones
Starring: Lots of Animals!

Bonus Features: Filmmaker Annotations exclusive to Blu-ray, and Earth Diaries: The Making of Earth The Movie.

From The Box:

On Disney Blu-ray, Earth is an absolutely stunning example of cinematic storytelling with its crisply detailed images and theater-quality sound.

An epic story of adventure, starring some of the most magnificent and courageous creatures alive, awaits you in earth. Disneynature brings you a remarkable story of three animal families on ajourney across our planet - polar bears, elephants, and humpback whales. Filmed with spectacular clarity and beauty, earth is both majestic and intimate as itcaptures rare footage of nature's wildest and most elusive animals. From the landmark Disneynature collection, earth is an astonishing and heartwarming film filled with adventure, suspense and humor that will take your breath away - especially in Blu-ray High Definition.

Disneynature has released their glorious first offering earth to Bluray and it is a sight to see. Click the Rawr! for the full review of this beautiful film.

Firstly, you should know that Disneynature's earth is an edited down version of the recent, and highly acclaimed, BBC documentary Planet Earth and while this is an incredible film to watch it does leave you wanting more. In fact, it serves better as a teaser for that documentary than as its own film.

It features simply amazing footage of all sorts of animals and landscapes that had me gasping in wonder. The focus however is supposed to be on three families of animals: polar bears, humpback whales, and elephants. It just doesn't seem like we spend that much time with them. The film takes us all over the world and gives us brief glimpses at some truly breathtaking footage. It always feels like it's just not enough.

Being Disney, the truly gruesome stuff is cut out. Any attacks that occur are edited down so as not to be frightening to children.

The true draw of earth is that every shot is stunning. On Blu-ray, even more so. My jaw dropped on more than one occasion. I was simply amazed by the clarity and the detail of every scene. It seemed as if I was standing there in person watching herds of caribou that stretched out for miles.

While the features are a little lacking, the film itself more than makes up for that. In the end though, I wanted so much more.

earth is the perfect nature film to watch with the family. It has laughs, heart, and is not too violent so as to scare the kids. I loved watching it and am eagerly awaiting the next release from Disneynature: Oceans.

I'd suggest picking this up. It is a visual masterpiece that will leave your eyes wide and your heart pumping. When the kids are a little older than I'd suggest getting the full Planet Earth documentary. I know I'll be getting it.

Disneynature's earth is available now.