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Whispers An Elephant's Tale
Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment // G // October 23, 2001
List Price: $29.99 [Buy now and save at Amazon]
The Movie:
"Whispers: An Elephant's Tale" is a fine idea for a Disney feature - "Homeward Bound in Africa", but the 79 minute feature doesn't work as well as I'd would have hoped. Covering the usual Disney formula, the story concerns a young Elephant who is separated from his mother after poachers attack early in the picture. Hiding in the wilds, he runs across another pack of Elephants lead by Groove (Angela Bassett) and hooks onto their group to help him find his way back to his own pack.
"Whispers" doesn't use the kind of computer-generated mouth movements that such kiddie-film pics as "Dr. Dolittle" and "Cats and Dogs" do - the film simply has the voice-over actors (including Bassett, "Absolutely Fabulous"'s Joanna Lumley, Anne Archer, Joan Rivers (yikes.) and others) providing the dialogue through voice-over narration.
I suppose that kids will find this feature enjoyable. The story takes place in an interesting and exotic landscape, the film is well-paced and over quickly at a mere 79 minutes and there's a fare amount of kid-friendly (although a Lion attack against a herd of Buffalo might scare the youngest viewer) action moments. In adult terms though, the voice-over performances are just decent and the banter between Groove and Whispers (the two don't get along) becomes somewhat monotonous. Still, the cinematography (by director/writer Dereck Joubert) is often beautiful and the film proved to be at least mildly entertaining more often than not. Yet, part of me thinks that this may have been more enjoyable as a 40-50 minute IMAX picture.
The DVD
VIDEO: I was quite displeased to see the back of the box list that the film had been "modified to fit your screen" (in other words, pan & scan). Upon starting the film, I found that that was thankfully not the case, as the film's gorgeous scenery was displayed in all its widescreen glory. Happiness soon turned sour, though - the film is presented in 1.85:1 non-anamorphic widescreen and the presentation quality is only average. Sharpness and detail are a little bit off more often than I'd like to see - the picture can appear sharp and fairly well-defined, but it also looked noticably a bit dark and soft at others.
Further problems appeared throughout the presentation. Some shots contained a mild (but still rather suprising, given the fact that it's a new picture) amount of grain. Other print flaws were thankfully absent, as the picture seemed largely free of everything but a couple of minor specks. Slight edge enhancement and a couple of minor traces of pixelation were also visible.
Thankfully, colors looked very pleasing throughout, as the scenery of Botswana (where the picture was filmed) provided many instances of beautiful scenery with bold colors. Overall, this presentation is certainly not bad, but the fact that it's not presented in anamorphic widescreen is dissapointing.
SOUND: The film is presented in Dolby 2.0, which is also a bit of a letdown, considering Trevor Rabin's wonderful score could likely have sounded superb in full 5.1. Ambient sounds coming from the surrounds would have likely really added to the experience, as well. Still, audio quality for this 2.0 presentation is still quite good, as the music sounded rich and deep and the voice-over dialogue sounded clear.
MENUS: Basic, static menus with film-themed images and the score in the background.
EXTRAS: The only extras are two short films - "Clown of the Jungle" and "Big Wash". It would have been quite nice to have some additional featurettes about how the filmmakers went about filming the animals in the locations or other supplements about the production.
Final Thoughts: "Whispers" is a mildly enjoyable picture, but it would have been nice if the story moved further away from the usual Disney formula. The DVD presents decent audio/video quality and only a few minor supplements. "Whispers" is probably a worthwhile rental for parents.
"Whispers: An Elephant's Tale" is a fine idea for a Disney feature - "Homeward Bound in Africa", but the 79 minute feature doesn't work as well as I'd would have hoped. Covering the usual Disney formula, the story concerns a young Elephant who is separated from his mother after poachers attack early in the picture. Hiding in the wilds, he runs across another pack of Elephants lead by Groove (Angela Bassett) and hooks onto their group to help him find his way back to his own pack.
"Whispers" doesn't use the kind of computer-generated mouth movements that such kiddie-film pics as "Dr. Dolittle" and "Cats and Dogs" do - the film simply has the voice-over actors (including Bassett, "Absolutely Fabulous"'s Joanna Lumley, Anne Archer, Joan Rivers (yikes.) and others) providing the dialogue through voice-over narration.
I suppose that kids will find this feature enjoyable. The story takes place in an interesting and exotic landscape, the film is well-paced and over quickly at a mere 79 minutes and there's a fare amount of kid-friendly (although a Lion attack against a herd of Buffalo might scare the youngest viewer) action moments. In adult terms though, the voice-over performances are just decent and the banter between Groove and Whispers (the two don't get along) becomes somewhat monotonous. Still, the cinematography (by director/writer Dereck Joubert) is often beautiful and the film proved to be at least mildly entertaining more often than not. Yet, part of me thinks that this may have been more enjoyable as a 40-50 minute IMAX picture.
The DVD
VIDEO: I was quite displeased to see the back of the box list that the film had been "modified to fit your screen" (in other words, pan & scan). Upon starting the film, I found that that was thankfully not the case, as the film's gorgeous scenery was displayed in all its widescreen glory. Happiness soon turned sour, though - the film is presented in 1.85:1 non-anamorphic widescreen and the presentation quality is only average. Sharpness and detail are a little bit off more often than I'd like to see - the picture can appear sharp and fairly well-defined, but it also looked noticably a bit dark and soft at others.
Further problems appeared throughout the presentation. Some shots contained a mild (but still rather suprising, given the fact that it's a new picture) amount of grain. Other print flaws were thankfully absent, as the picture seemed largely free of everything but a couple of minor specks. Slight edge enhancement and a couple of minor traces of pixelation were also visible.
Thankfully, colors looked very pleasing throughout, as the scenery of Botswana (where the picture was filmed) provided many instances of beautiful scenery with bold colors. Overall, this presentation is certainly not bad, but the fact that it's not presented in anamorphic widescreen is dissapointing.
SOUND: The film is presented in Dolby 2.0, which is also a bit of a letdown, considering Trevor Rabin's wonderful score could likely have sounded superb in full 5.1. Ambient sounds coming from the surrounds would have likely really added to the experience, as well. Still, audio quality for this 2.0 presentation is still quite good, as the music sounded rich and deep and the voice-over dialogue sounded clear.
MENUS: Basic, static menus with film-themed images and the score in the background.
EXTRAS: The only extras are two short films - "Clown of the Jungle" and "Big Wash". It would have been quite nice to have some additional featurettes about how the filmmakers went about filming the animals in the locations or other supplements about the production.
Final Thoughts: "Whispers" is a mildly enjoyable picture, but it would have been nice if the story moved further away from the usual Disney formula. The DVD presents decent audio/video quality and only a few minor supplements. "Whispers" is probably a worthwhile rental for parents.
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