Week 17: African Cats

In honor of Earth Day, we went and saw African Cats.  The week's movie was a family affair.  Well, I guess for my family it was just me and my 6 year old son Rhett.  Rhett was really excited to see this movie.  Real life animal movies or documentaries are right up Rhett's alley.  He's seen all sorts of animal shows and knows more about animals then your average adult.  Me included.  And one thing about Rhett is he knows all about an animals life cycle and how sometimes one animal has to die in order for the other to live.  We like to keep things real in the Jenkins household.  It's a good thing we do when it comes to going to movies like this. 

This movie, like most who follow animals around in their natural habitat, showed the ups and downs of living in the wild.  If you intend to take your kids to this movie you'll really want to think twice about how you're child deals with this stuff.  One of my friends took her 7 year old daughter and said she cried every time an animal was killed.  Rhett on the other hand didn't bat an eye to that stuff.  So make sure you know what your getting into before assuming this is for everyone. 

Now, me on the other hand, I have a love/hate relationship with these kinds of movies.  I find them fascinating but I hate to see the weak be taken down.  And it's especially hard to see bad things happen to the young animals.  Since this is a Disney movie nothing was overly graphic though.  But there were sad moments and triumphant times as well. 

It was about three sets of cats.  Two prides of lions fighting over territory and a momma cheetah and her cubs.  I know you have a narrator (Samuel L. Jackson; the perfect voice for the movie) the whole time but it's still amazing the kind of stories that can come out of observing a family of animals.  It was so well done though too.  If this is your thing, I highly recommend this movie.  Next year the Earth Day movie is about a three year old orphaned chimpanzee.  That's going to be a tear jerker.

To Sum it up: Amazing animals, breathtaking scenery and wonderful stories.