Philadelphia Weekly

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Out of Time

After 40 years the corny Sound of Music arouses some blend of camp,
nostalgia and lost innocence.

By Leo Charney

Add Comment | Comments: 0 | Posted Nov. 16, 2005

Not interesting or original in itself, March becomes a blank slate into which people can read whatever they want. First made and narrated in France, it's like a hundred other nature shows you've seen on cable. It doggedly follows the breeding "march" of penguins in 80-degrees-below-zero Antarctica, while they fight the odds and the weather to bring their eggs into the world, huddling against the cold or waddling off in groups to find food.

Outrageously anthropomorphic, the voiceover--read by sonorous Morgan Freeman--invents family dramas of tragedy, reconciliation and abandonment that may have nothing to do with what's happening on-screen. Filled with long stretches of silence while penguins poke around in snow, the film does achieve one clever goal: It feels as tedious as the penguins' march itself. C-

Includes: Featurettes, Bugs Bunny short, theatrical trailer.

You'll Like It If You Like: Animal documentaries, Christian parables, intelligent design.

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