African Cats Roars into Living Rooms! – Mr. DAPs Blu-Ray Review

Disneynature’s most recent movie is a bit…catty. African Cats follows the lives of two African cat families, one is that of a lioness and her cub and the other a cheetah with her three little ones. Filmed over the span of two years and narrated by Samuel Jackson, African Cats shows the beauty and the wonder of Africa along with the death and tragedy that is the necessary balance to the beauty in the circle of life.

Picture and Sound:

African Cats looks and sounds absolutely amazing. As a rule of thumb, Disneynature films look and sound great but this one seemed to go even further. Multiple times throughout the film I found myself thinking “wow” as beautiful panorama after panorama was displayed. If you have the Blu-Ray player, the HD television, and sound system to go with it, this is a movie that is great to put in just to appreciate the technology. The sound was also quite incredible. I’m not going to say it was breathtaking like some of the visual scenes were but it was definitely high quality and there were some incredible audio moments as well.

Bonus Features:

I will admit that on this presentation the bonus features were a bit of a letdown. As I watched African Cats there were multiple times where I really wondered how they got a shot or some more detail behind things and while there was one good bonus feature… there was really only one good bonus feature. That bonus feature was the Filmmaker Annotations. To view this, you needed to watch the film a second time then the annotations were added in. Some of these were actually quite extensive. It is a good bonus feature but I still wanted more. They also included a couple of other clips, the first being Save the Savannah. This feature talks about the land needed for these amazing animals to survive and how Disney is using proceeds from African Cats to help make a difference by leasing land for these animals to migrate through.  Disney and Nature is a brief featurette about how Disney is committed to helping the environment. Lastly there is a Music Video where Jordan Sparks sings the song, The World I Knew.

Overview:

African Cats is a beautiful film and to date, my favorite Disneynature presentation. This is the first Disneynature film where I really felt drawn into the story to the point where I cared about the specific animals. This wasn’t just a documentary about lions and cheetahs but instead the story of two families that are struggling for survival in a beautiful, but at times, inhospitable world. Samuel Jackson’s narration was well suited for these stories as well. He didn’t spit out facts but instead acted like a narrator and helped move the story along. Couple great story telling with the beauty that is captured of Africa and this is definitely a hit! I would have to give this one a hearty hat tip! Definitely go out and get this one!