Movie Review: Cry Of The Penguins

At the library, we were looking through the movies, as usual, and Alexandria picked this up. For those who don't know, Alexandria loves penguins. They're her favorite animals and she has a decent amount of stuffed penguins. Not to mention that whenever we go to the library, I see at least one penguin book in her stack. We figured we would check it out, just to give it a shot.


Cry Of The Penguins
Release Year: 1971
Genre: Adventure
My Rating: 2/5


The Premise:
(As read on back cover)

"When a womanizing biologist has the opportunity to study a colony of penguins in the Antarctic, he accepts with the intention of impressing a girl, and not for scientific purposes.

However, over the course of his time spent around the penguins, he develops a genuine interest and concern for their fight for survival. Will being so close to nature transform the man's outlook on his own priorities?"

Unfortunately, there is not a trailer for this film, so we're skipping right on to the review.

It apparently isn't a very common movie. I can honestly say that I was expecting a little bit more from this movie than I got. The plot was a generally nice idea, but the execution wasn't so marvelous. This movie could have been a lot better if certain things were changed or added.


Things I Thought Would Have Made the Movie Better:

1) More development between Tara and Richard, because it isn't convincing AT ALL.

2) A scene towards the end where Richard's change of outlook can be demonstrated.

3) A little more thought, because it just isn't logical to take wood from the wimpy shelter you have in order to build a machine (basically a failed catapult), that won't even work in the end. You can't toss off nature's balance, no matter how much it means to you. Even if it sends you into a mentally unstable level.

BOTTOM LINE: Less alcohol, more logic!

The thing that really redeemed this movie from being a 1 Star, was the great penguin footage. I enjoyed that a lot. Alexandria liked it, but wasn't too thrilled with the Adelie penguins (she's more of an emperor penguin type of girl).

Overall, there was lots of potential that wasn't capitalized on. Definitely could have been a great film with just a little more editing and effort. Good for about one watch, but it won't be a family favorite.