Movie:
Africia's Elephant Kingdom was directed, produced, and written by Michael Caulfield and filmed on location in Kenya over a six-month period. Filmed by Discovery Channel Pictures in IMAX, the film was originally presented in the IMAX theaters in 1998. In the theaters, the film was in 3-D, though for the DVD release, its strictly 2-D.

The film is narrated by Old Bull (voiced by Avery Brooks), a sixty-year-old elephant, who guides the viewer on his clan's struggle to find food and water during a drought, along with sharing quite a few interesting aspects of elephants that probably escape the average viewer. For instance, covered in the film are: how elephants organize themselves, who leads them, how they mate, and to me the most fascinating, how they cope with death. Elephants, though in the spotlight, aren't the only animals that appear in the film; also present are zebras, rhinos, hippopotamuses, and many more.

I really enjoyed Africia's Elephant Kingdom, though it does deviate from many of the other IMAX films I've seen by having the narrator voice the thoughts of one of the "characters" in the film. At first, I wasn't sure how that would turn out, but in the end, its fine. Like most IMAX films, the cinematography in Africa's Elephant Kingdom is incredible – the aerial shots of Africa are simply breathtaking. The film's running time of 40 minutes is also on par with other IMAX films, but should the film leave you wanting more, the included 60-minute featurette on the making of the film should satisfy.

Picture:
Africa's Elephant Kingdom is presented in 1.33:1, which is the closest aspect ratio to the original IMAX presentation. The transfer is quite good: its only flaws are some light grain in a few scenes, literally only a few specks/marks, and a slight bit of excessive edge enhancement. Colors and contrast are excellent with terrific detail throughout the film.

Sound:
Africa's Elephant Kingdom is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 and Dolby Stereo 2.0, both in English. I was somewhat disappointed that the surrounds weren't used as aggressively as many of the other IMAX films that I've seen: the storm and a few scenes with elephants charging were impressive, but I would've liked more. However, the film does contain an excellent score, which does adequately fill out the surrounds. The narration by Brooks throughout the film is crisp, clean, and always easy to understand, with no distortion that I could detect.

Extras:
The main extra on the disc is the terrific "Making of" featurette that runs sixty minutes in length. It features numerous interviews with the crew, as they share the challenges involved in filming elephants up close, in Kenya, and with IMAX film. There are also quite a few behind the scenes moments, some unused footage, and a few stories from the six months the crew was there. The documentary is excellent and answered about every question I had about the film: even the difference between several of the more popular film types is shown and explained. Also included are the trailer and a web link to discovery.com.

Summary:
Africa's Elephant Kingdom is a film that all ages will learn something from and a film that I enjoyed quite a bit. Artisan has put together a great DVD, whose highlight is the exceptional featurette that adds to the film immensely. The film is most definitely recommended for anyone who loves elephants or wants to learn more about them. Recommended!