Chimpanzee

Winner of several imaginary literary and filmmaking awards.

Chimpanzee is the latest in Disneynature's continuing series of kid-friendly wildlife documentaries that began with 2009's Earth and has continued every year on Earth Day with Oceans and African Cats. The concept is simple: take a basic Discovery Channel doc and affix a cutesy storybook narrative to its cuddly animal "protagonists." Such a fusion often breeds a semi-uncomfortable blend of irrepressible manufactured cuteness and stark real-life survival-of-the-fittest brutality. Kids will alternately swell with happiness and recoil in horror.

Most interesting about Chimpanzee is just how deeply it immerses itself in the jungle of family entertainment. While its Disneynature forebears certainly personified its animal characters and formulated narratives that were easy for kids to engage with, Chimpanzee is essentially a full-tilt kiddie flick, with a narration that would easily fill the pages of an illustrated children's book at the public library. And yet the film's "illustrations" are gorgeous, every frame populated with breathtaking wildlife photography and staggering aerial footage of  the Ivory Coast that is so pristine it almost looks animated.

Tim Allen narrates the film, which focuses on the adventures of Oscar, a three-year-old chimpanzee living with his tribe in West Africa. It seems no accident that Oscar is not merely the youngest of these primates but also the cutest, which automatically makes us all root for him. He follows the tribe as they climb branches, search for food, crack nuts open with rocks, and guard their territory against rival tribes. His mimicry of the older chimpanzees is true documentary gold, capturing the innocence and impressionable nature of a young primate coming of age. But young Oscar is still young enough to stick closely with his mother, who is his primary -- often only -- source of protection and food.

Students of nature documentaries are well aware that life in the wild is dangerous. Students of Disney films possess the acute knowledge that mother figures often must die in order to usher in the male hero's character arc. Obviously living in the jungle is treacherous and the lives of these survivalist creatures can shift on a dime, but I offer a humble observation that it seems convenient that Disneynature stumbled on a real-life scenario that so closely resembles Bambi. Nevertheless, the beauty of documentary is occasionally encountering extraordinary snapshots of real life, and in this case Oscar's mother vanishes, the likely victim of an invading rival tribe, and the young chimpanzee is left alone at a time when his mother is vital to his survival.

Unfortunate but inevitable is the film's tendency to pit one faction of animal against the other; the story revolves around this cute little chimp, and therefore his tribe is "good" while their jungle counterparts are deemed "evil." The tribe's leader is named Scar. They even have their own dastardly orchestra piece on the soundtrack. And yet, in reality, Scar is just trying to lead his tribe, and they are just trying to find food to survive. The deliberate shaping of this wildlife narrative is nothing new, but is amplified to storybook proportions in Chimpanzee. Allen's narration fits like a glove, his occasional injections of humor befitting this very kid-friendly story. But "kid-friendly" is also a virtue, providing a cinematic diversion for young children that isn't subversive or mind-numbing, and offers some truly stunning nature imagery. Like all Disneynature films, Chimpanzee is a mixed bag, but it fulfills its role in the natural selection of the Hollywood box-office.

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