I didn’t exactly want to see this movie, but the person I went with wanted to see it, so I ended up going.  I’m not against seeing nature docs in theaters, I just didn’t have very high expectations from this one, especially from the reviews I had read prior to going.

After having watched the film, I think that those reviews did make a few fair points.

If you’re expecting something like Disney’s African Cats (2011), then prepare to be at least a little disappointed.  Personally, I felt like Disney did a far better job with that film than they did with this one.  In my opinion, the trailer for this film was a little misleading because it makes you think that the main focus is going to be on the orphaned chimp being adopted by the head male of the chimp clan.  For most of the film though, the focus actually seems to be more on the clan’s “day-to-day” activities and the baby chimp’s relationship with his mother before he gets orphaned.

A little more footage of the baby chimp with his adopted father interacting together and building their relationship would have been nice, but of course it’s possible they might not have been able to capture anything of the sort.  What they used as the main selling point in their trailer though, was only like the last 20 minutes of the film.  Not bad, but not nearly as impressive as the story they captured in African Cats.

I don’t exactly think it’s fair to grade this film like I do most other ones, partially because it was so short and there’s just not much to go on, and also because it doesn’t really fill up the categories of my usual ratings breakdown.  I’ll just say this, it’s not necessarily a terrible watch, but I think it is more of a rental type of movie.  For what it’s worth, it is always fascinating to see how humane animals can be; sometimes I think they can be even better than people.  Of course, that’s a philosophical rant for another day.

Well, until my next post, see you all again!