Critic Reviews

Migrations' animals provide a humbling lesson in resilience and determination. [15 Nov 2010, p.44]

There's not a nature-show junkie out there who won't be wowed by the stunning footage in this seven-hour miniseries about migratory animals. [5 Nov 2010, p.66]

Great Migrations lets us be amazed rather than telling us to be, and the amazement quotient is, yes, amazingly high.

The series is animated mostly by the perfectly legitimate reason of invoking sheer wonder, but the scientific episode gives a fascinating glimpse of what scientists still have to learn from these creatures.

This seven-part National Geographic series on the world's great migrations turns out to be riveting--not just beautifully filmed, which you would expect, but bursting with great stories about how diverse creatures have learned to survive in a world where everyone is fighting for the same food, air, turf and water.

We may have seen film of migrating wildebeest and zebras on the Serengeti before. But Great Migrations looks at everything from new and spectacularly beautiful angles.

It's difficult to begrudge the producers their poetry--on one level, the imagery begs for similarly breathtaking language. But in this case, less might well have been more; the narration works best when it is relaying information rather than describing a "sun-spangled yearning to move."

The postproduction excesses may sometimes distract from the series' wonder, which, if not quite up to Discovery's Planet Earth (2007) and Life (2010), is still jaw-dropping.

If you've seen the many hours of "The Blue Planet" and "Planet Earth," or are a regular watcher of the nature documentaries constantly available on cable, then you've already seen most of what Great Migrations has to offer, or some version of it.

While the first four parts (airing in two-hour blocks) of National Geographic Channel's sweeping nature film rival the majesty and wonder of Discovery's "Planet Earth" and "Life," the final three amount to DVD extras, padding out the exercise.