African Cats

Nature documentaries can be broken down into two key elements -- the photography and the narration/story arc -- and the images here are extraordinary. Veteran wildlife specialists Owen Newman and Sophie Darlington were the directors of photography for this film, and it's obvious they patiently waited for just the right shots. We get the expected hunting scenes that show Sita running with such beauty and elegance that you don't really care that she's about to down an equally elegant but not quite as fast gazelle. But there's also a lovely, domestic touch to the smaller scenes, whether it's of Sita's three remaining cubs playing with each other or standing their ground against bullying hyenas, or of the pride of lionesses and their cubs lounging on a flat rock and grooming each other.

As for the narration, Samuel L. Jackson tackles it with precision and heart. The script he reads is heavy-handed with the humanizing -- painting the mothers in such a way that we all think of them as the "good guys" and their animal kingdom enemies as the "bad guys." But it works for the purposes of this story, to make everyone think of the universality of motherhood and how even our counterparts in the wild will stop at nothing to get their kids safely to self sufficiency. Food, shelter, experience -- these are things that all mothers try to provide, and watching Sita and Layla do it with their feline kidlets is a satisfying, if at times heartbreaking, endeavor.