According to Merriam-Webster OnLine, the word "genesis" means the origin or coming into being of something. Needless to say, this review for Genesis the documentary is about that definition, not Phil Collin's band. Sorry to disappoint.

At some point in our lives we've all seen stuff like this; there's just really no getting around it. Maybe you saw it in school or maybe it was on the Discovery Channel or Animal Planet at some point. Either way you should know going in that Genesis doesn't offer any ground breaking insight into the creation of life and our existence on this planet. Depending on your age and knowledge about the material you may not be interested in seeing it, but this documentary would be great for younger kids that are learning about the world. Well, as long as you don't mind your child watching seahorses getting freaky, that is.

The nice thing about Genesis is that it doesn't pound you with information. In that sense the film really is just a form of digital art with a slight narrative telling the story of life. In other words you don't have to sit through the narrator telling you what animals are eating another, listen to details about mating habits, or learn intricacies of their species. Instead, a wizened African man (Sotigui Kouyaté) sits in an earthen environment with a pot of water and preaches his wisdom in the form of a story.

The feature basically follows our planet's history from the moment of conception to the final hours of life. The universe came from nothingness and when Earth was formed it was a ball of fire. As the world cooled it rained for thousands of years and eventually life sprung from the watery depths of the newly formed oceans. Life evolved into something more and a daunting amount of species found their way into existence. Basically the message here is that we are all related to one another and to all living things on this planet, so go hug a tree.

Ok, it may not be that sappy, but it's mostly speculative and a little heavy handed at times. The information that you'll get from the documentary is very light and is about as enlightening as a fortune cookie at times. This combined with some of the cute or funny actions caught on film are what make it much better suited for younger children with an interest in animals. I can honestly say though, that I don't think I have ever seen a movie or documentary that was so breathtakingly beautiful before. Every piece of material here was painstakingly filmed and features images that are just about as clear as they can possibly be.

In the end this is a documentary that will only be appreciated by adults because of its visual nature. The subject matter here with the accompanying soft narrative means that this is really stuff for kids and kids alone. I found some of the images that were captured to be fascinating, but my interest just wasn't held for very long. For my dollar there are better documentaries of this nature broadcast on TV just about every night. If you do have kids that may be interested in it I would suggest a rental or maybe a purchase depending how into "nature" they are.

Originally produced in 2004, Genesis looks absolutely stunning on DVD with a gorgeous 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen presentation. There are virtually no compression artifacts to be seen and the only flaw that I noticed was a tad bit of edge enhancement at points. Other than that I stand by my description of calling this digital art earlier. Sure the subject matter isn't the most interesting, but the manner in which it's filmed makes it watchable. The colors are also represented accurately with vibrant pieces of nature coming through marvelously.

I have to admit that I'm a little fuzzy on the audio presentation for Genesis. Sure it's presented with an English 2.0 stereo track as its standard selection, but given the nature of the documentary, that means it's a dubbing track. This is a foreign produced feature and the narrator Sotigui Kouyaté was obviously speaking his native tongue, because his lips aren't in sync with the audio. An original language option with English subtitles could have gone a long way to change my appreciation for the feature, but sadly that's not the case. As far as the actual quality is concerned, there's nothing to complain about. The sound included on this DVD is about as clear as the imagery, but it goes only as far as a stereo track can.

There are three trailers included on the disc and those are for Genesis, Murderball and Born into Brothels. Apart from those the only other feature are some still images from various points in the documentary. There are 37 stills in all, but to be honest this was pretty pointless considering that you can't really do much of anything with them. You're just better off watching the video instead if you want to see the grandeur of the material.

I'm always up for a good documentary every now and then. Unfortunately Genesis is a tough call when it comes right down to it. I adored it for the visual presentation and found it slightly charming because of the soft narrative, but those are really the film's only strong points. There is next to no information provided and the whole thing comes across as a glorified one with nature message. It's because of this that children will get the most out of it, but if you find yourself having to sit through it with a child you can at least be amazed by the pretty pictures. I'm going to suggest a rental for that reason alone, but if you don't fall under that category, then you can pretty much just skip it.

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