Island of Lemurs: Madagascar was made for IMAX and 3D, so watching it flat on a regular TV is like watching a regular movie on your laptop. Yet it’s still eye-poppingly beautiful even in a less impressive format.
The 40-minute nature documentary profiles several species of the odd and diverse primates known as lemurs, who are found only on the large island of Madagascar after going extinct in the rest of Africa somewhere around 60 million years ago. Although narrator Morgan Freeman, Dr. Patricia Wright, and other primatologists discuss how cute and adorable the furry critters are, nobody points out that they’re also strange and spooky, so let it be said here.
We see the black-furred indri, who cling to the trees like upright sloths and hoot a haunting, piercing chorus every morning. We see ring-tailed rascals who live among mountainous rocks as far as possible from humans but are as friendly and unafraid as their relatives. We see tiny mouse lemurs being measured and prodded. We see see white-furred sifaka, who uncannily hop or dance sideways on their hind legs while holding out their arms. This is possibly the most freakish footage, though scored for comedy in the best tradition of Disney’s True-Life Adventures, thanks to composer Mark Mothersbaugh of DEVO and Pee Wee’s Playhouse. Adding to the sense of oddity, the Malagasy band Tarika sings distinctive local covers of “I Will Survive” and “Be My Baby”.
Like a PBS nature documentary aimed at whetting the appetite of armchair nature tourists, this film works as a short, superficial, non-scientific overview of a few species of lemur out of over 100 and an advertisement for the work of scientist and preservationist Dr. Wright. We get the sense that we could have seen a lot more lemur action plus more bizarre local fauna, though what we see is memorable.
The short extras are making-of puffballs. Their most interesting information includes how director Drew Fellman and photographer David Douglas went up in a balloon to get the soaring shots, and we also get a closer look at the local go-karts used by delivery boys to ride down mountain roads. The sound mix reduces human voices to a whisper while music is amped up. The Blu-ray detects whether you’ve got a 3D set-up and plays 3D or 2D accordingly, while a regular DVD is also provided.