Knut And Friends
Studio: Image Entertainment
US DVD Release Date: December 8, 2009
Rated: Not Rated
Running Time: 85 minutes
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen
Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1 (English)
Subtitles: English (SDH), Spanish
Movie: 3.5 out of 5
Knut and His Friends (the title that appears in the opening credits) follows the early life of internet-sensation Knut, a polar bear born in captivity at the Berlin Zoo and was abandoned by his mother, only to be raised by zookeeper Thomas Dörflein. To pad out the running time, the film also follows the early lives of a mother polar bear and her cubs in the arctic, as well as a pair of orphaned brown bears in Belarus. We get to see Knut grow from a guinea pig-sized cub in an incubator, who quickly bonds to Dörflein, to a full-sized adolescent living in his own enclosure at the zoo.
Much of this footage appears to have been shot, home movie style, with consumer-grade high definition and standard definition video cameras. This footage is interspersed with professional high-definition video and 35mm film clips of the arctic polar bear family's journey to the ocean and the mischievous adventures of the orphaned brown bears. This is mildly distracting, not quite as bad as watching Uncle Bob's home movies of his trip to the San Diego Zoo and then switching back and forth to Planet Earth.
Other weaknesses of the film include the elementary-school narration by Eric Meyers as The Wind (telling us how he can change the weather and travel from one location to another), and the generic score by Peter Wolf with its repetitive use of pseudo-pop songs can be irritating, but this is geared more towards a younger crowd, so it is forgivable.
The cuteness factor of this film is its most endearing quality, and there is plenty to keep the kids (as well as animal-loving adults) entertained for the full 85-minute running time.
Video: 3 out of 5
Knut and Friends arrives on DVD with a frustrating 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer. Color levels are consistent, but the mixture of source material often introduces video noise and aliasing issues along with muted detail, especially during the footage of Knut's story. Otherwise, the footage of the arctic polar bear family and the orphaned brown bears are more of what one would expect from a nature documentary. Detail levels are much better during these sequences, the hairs in the fur of the bears and the texture of the snow in particular.
Audio: 3 out of 5
The Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, encoded at 448 kbps, has good fidelity, but don't expect much else. LFE is virtually non-existent, and surround activity is limited to bear growls and music ambiance. It does its job quite nicely.
Special Features: 0 out of 5
There are no Special Features whatsoever on this disc. Not even trailers.
Overall: 3.5 out of 5
An entertaining animal nature documentary, suitable for the entire family, is a mixed bag in terms of video and audio quality, with no special features.
