Educational and entertaining for the whole family

After hearing NPR's Terry Gross interview with the creators of the movie Earth opening on Earthday 2009, I thought back about my two boys reaction to the beautiful and inspiring "March of the Penguin". All three of us enjoyed it in 2005, but the attack and death scenes were quite upsetting to my then 6 year old who still loves penguins. As gorgeous as "March of the Penguin" and its gripping story, he has not asked to see it again. This coming from a precocious and sensitive child who has watched "Ratatouille" and "Finding Nemo" at least 12 times, including all of the special features in the DVDs!

I took my six year old to see MotP in the theaters when it first came out. We were the only family with children there, the rest of the patrons were all retirees. It was fairly brutal for the kids. It is very, very long with long slow scenes of penguins walking across the ice. Dramatic, maybe, but definitely a trial for the younger kids. Also, the best part for most of the other movie goers that day was when my six year old saw the mating scene and asked loudly "Mom, what are those penguins doing?" and every pair of eyes in the theater turned to see how I'd handle it! (Which was, of course, directly and matter-of-factly!) At the time, the film was touted as great for kids and a good family film. There was nothing terrible or terribly offensive, it was just too long, overdramatic, and a little depressing. When the penguin, after about an hour of build-up, drops his egg leading to its instant demise, my eight year old sighed and said "Kinda wish I got dropped on my head on the ice about now." Again, not a bad film, but for the kids, better to watch a 30 minute National Geographic special instead.

I tend to like a good documentary. However, this film nearly bored me to sleep. While it has plenty of educational value, I have yet to meet a person who actually LIKED the film, much less wanted to buy it. Some of the shots were fantastic, but it dragged on endlessly and never managed to catch my interest. I would suggest you save yourself the time and watch a shorter documentary.

I brought my almost 6 yr old to see this film yesterday and for someone who usually handles violence and other mishaps of nature fairly well; she was covering her eyes and gasping at points (granted she's also quite the drama queen). After the mommy penguin was eaten by the seal and she realized that that meant that the baby penguin wouldn't have food... I actually asked her if she needed to leave... but she insisted on staying so she could discover what happened to the penguins. After much discussion (good thing we went to a matinee)... she left the movie with the impression that penguins are cool (no pun intended).

This truely an amazing movie. I took my 8 year old son, my 12 year old daughter and my 68 year old aunt and the entire group loved the movie. Name another movie where that would be true! The movie was tender, funny, sad and educational all at the same time. We all walked away in awe of the penquin and you will too.

I took my 3 year old, and she got a little fidgety but was mostly fascinated. There were a couple of scenes that were somewhat disturbing, though, so be prepared for some discussion about the natural food chain. None of these scenes were graphic or gory, but young kids may be a little scared because it's not pretend like so many other movies.

I said this movie was ok for young kids but I want to qualify that. There is nothing wrong with the content...my kids (3 & 5) didn't even realize they were mating...but, a little over half way through the movie they said they were ready to go home. They liked it ok, but my 3 year old constantly talked and asked questions about where they were going and what they were doing. They were just really too young to sit through a true documentary.