Review of Pride

Introduction

This (technically and logistically) remarkable movie features a genuine pride of lions filmed on the plains of East Africa, as well as additional footage filmed at a lion sanctuary in South Africa. But the really clever bit is that the images have then been edited together and manipulated by computer animators, with character effects and animation by Jim Henson`s Creature Shop, so that the mouths and expressions of the lions move with the dialogue.

Kate Winslet heads a star voice cast as the voice of the young, rebellious Suki.
Joining her are Sean Bean as Dark, her dark and dangerous suitor, Rupert Graves as her cowardly brother Linus, Helen Mirren as Suki`s mother Macheeba, John Hurt as the baddie Harry, Martin Freeman (yes - he of `The Office` and `Love Actually` fame) as Fleck, who is adopted by Macheeba when his mother dies, Robbie Coltrane and Jim Broadbent as the old comedy duo of the pride and Kwame Kwei-Armah as Lush.

The BBC have obviously really gone to town with this production with John Downer at the helm. He is perhaps best known for his acclaimed documentaries Lions: Spy in the Den and Elephants: Spy In The Herd, and is one of the world`s most renowned natural history filmmakers.

In a stroke of lateral inspiration he engaged leading television writer Simon Nye (Men Behaving Badly, How Do You Want Me, Beast) to create the script for the movie, so the whole thing has some very amusing dialogue that will delight children as it straddles the `risqué` barrier with it`s jokes about farting, nipples and other `naughty` references - though they never get any worse than you might here in an infants playground.

Simon Nye was also responsible for bringing the children`s series `The Railway Children` and `Pollyanna` to television, so has a good understanding of what seems to work for the young.

The main story focuses on a pride of lions that live in human-type set-ups. The opening establishes the character and the slow, almost languid pace of life. After a peaceful scene-setting start, the apple cart is truly upset as some `wanderers` (Lions who have no `pride`) attack the group and kill one of the lionesses. Then tragedy strikes, and it tests the courage of Suki and her friends as they are exposed to the often brutal forces of nature.

The movie apparently took more than two years to make and will be aired by the BBC over the Christmas period. Remember - you heard it here first!

Video

The picture detail is beautifully crisp and has all been digitally mastered from the original edit. Many shots have been digitally enhanced so that the sky is always a glorious blue (except during the star filled nights) and the East African horizon always breath-taking. Flawless.

Audio

Stereo and 5.1 audio is first-class, with some major voice-talent doing a really great job of the dialogue, all reproduced here with real punch. The 5.1 offers up some exciting background effects that really help conjure up the environment.

Features

There`s a really impressive `making of` featurette that I enjoyed every bit as much as the feature. The over-riding feeling is that the movie was an incredible labour of love where all involved were fuelled by the belief that they could make it happen - but with no guarantees. Showing that necessity is indeed the mother of invention, we`re introduced to many Heath-Robinson styled inventions that enabled some of the more spectacular sequences to happen. An upside down bike was used to crank meat across the plains to encourage a lion to run in a particular direction at speed. A `wire-cam` device was used to capture the pace of the Lion`s run whereby a taut wire is placed into the ground and a camera tracked along the wire to get the shot. And of course the incredible `Boulder-cam` - a camera disguised as a boulder, mounted on one of those remote control robotic vehicles used to disarm bombs. This tool really takes the viewer to the heart of the action. We also see how the stars of the show (the Lions) were encouraged to perform by dedicated specialists. The whole 30-minute featurette, which also takes in a trip to the computer animator`s HQ, is narrated by Martin Freeman who also personally does much of the interviewing and this is in itself highly entertaining.

Conclusion

This movie has more than a touch of `Babe` about it using as it uses a convincing combination of live-action and computer enhancement to create a very realistic comedy-drama. I guess it`s best described (in Disney terms) as a cross between a traditional Disney nature film and `The Lion King`.

The cinematography is superb. Whilst there are some great classic vista shots of the pride, shot long on the lens against the stunning backdrop of the Serengeti, the real joy here is the incredible close-ups afforded by filming with the inventive `Boulder-cam`. This really puts the viewer into the centre of the pride in a way that wouldn`t otherwise have been possible. The results are really very impressive.

The CGI elements are very effective too - completely unlike the Aslan in the BBC`s classic Narnia series from some years ago. Great care and effort has been put into getting all the movements right so that the end result is almost magically real.

Described as a `family film` by the BBC, young viewers may indeed love the humorous rapport between characters - as well as being entirely bewitched by the realism. However, if they`re like my two daughters then they won`t make it the end of the film without a few tears and some upset over the frankly explicit violence of real `natural` killing. `The Lion King` this ain`t - and there`s good and bad in that from a child`s point of view.